David Bowie "Jump They Say" 1993

"Jump They Say" is a song by David Bowie from his album Black Tie White Noise. It was released as a first single from the album in March 1993. While Bowie opted not to tour for the Black Tie White Noise album, the song would feature on his 1995 Outside Tour.

The song dealt with Bowie’s feelings for his schizophrenic half-brother Terry, who had committed suicide on 16 January 1985. The lyrics tell of a man pushed to utter desperation by the pressure put on him. Bowie has also cited his own feelings about jumping into the unknown metaphysically. Musically, the influence of Nile Rodgers led to a funk-based sound, though the track was also influenced by contemporary jazz, with a solo from avant-jazz trumpeter Lester Bowie.

As the lead-off single, "Jump They Say" received a considerable promotional push from Bowie’s new label, Savage Records (though Arista Records distributed the package in Europe). A striking video was shot by Mark Romanek, depicting Bowie as a businessman paranoid of his colleagues, who seemingly conduct experiments on him and find him a disturbing influence, forcing him to jump from the roof of the corporate building to his death.

The video is heavily influenced by Jean-Luc Godard's 1965 film Alphaville, Stanley Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange (1971), as well as Chris Marker's film La Jetée and Orson Welles' The Trial - both from 1962. The uniformed women shown monitoring Bowie through high powered telescopes are an homage to the stewardesses in the Pan-Am space plane in Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).

The video was praised by Entertainment Weekly after Bowie died in 2016, saying "Bowie is an excellent actor, and this video may be his best character performance in a music video.


1 Jump They Say (Radio Edit) 3:53

2 Jump They Say (JAE-E Edit)
Remix, Producer [Additional] –JAE-E* 3:583

3 Jump They Say (Club Hart Remix)
Remix, Producer [Additional] – JAE-E* 5:05

4 Jump They Say (Leftfield Remix)
Remix – Leftfield 7:41

5 Pallas Athena (Album Version)    4:40

6 Pallas Athena (Don't Stop Praying Remix)
Remix – Meat Beat Manifesto 5:36


David Bowie – lead vocals, saxophone
Nile Rodgers – guitar, drum loops
Barry Campbell – bass guitar
Richard Hilton – keyboards
Lester Bowie – trumpet