Always Crashing in the Same Car

"Always Crashing in the Same Car" is a song by David Bowie from his album Low from 1977.

Contents

• Other recorded versions
• Personnel
• Cover versions
• Trivia
• References

The song's lyrics express the frustration of making the same mistake over and over. The narrator of the song recounts driving at high speed in circles around a hotel garage, cautiously checking for danger, yet still inevitably crashing, while a girl named Jasmine looks on.

The song refers to a real life incident in Bowie's life that occurred at the height of his cocaine addiction. Driving his Mercedes, Bowie had spotted a drug dealer on the streets who he believed had ripped him off. In retaliation, Bowie repeatedly rammed his own car into the dealer's car, after which he returned to his hotel and ended up driving around in circles in the hotel's underground garage.

There are two verses to the piece, although three were planned. In the studio, Bowie sang a third verse in a Bob Dylan style. However, given Bob Dylan's infamous motorcycling accident years earlier and the song's subject matter, the band considered such a move to be crass, and Bowie asked for Tony Visconti to delete the verse from the recording.

The song features the use of synthesizers and treatments to bring Bowie's largely calm vocals over the sound of the band. A long guitar solo completes the song.

The song's title appears in the novel "The Time Traveler's Wife" by Audrey Niffenegger as the subtitle of the chapter "Christmas Eve, One". Media scientist Dr. Annette Bitsch's German language book on Jacques Lacan's mathematics of the unconscious is titled after the song in the original English.