"Station to Station" was recorded at
Cherokee Studios in Los Angeles between September and November 1975. According to Emily Barker of
NME, Bowie "starved his body of all nutrients (besides
milk, red peppers, and
cocaine)" during the song's recording. Bowie would recall later that he could not remember recording the album at all, saying "I have only flashes of making it." Author David Buckley states that Bowie's only memory of the sessions was "standing with [lead guitarist]
Earl Slick in the studio and asking him to play a
Chuck Berry riff in the same key throughout the opening of 'Station to Station'." At over 10 minutes in length, "Station to Station" is Bowie's longest studio recording. Structurally, the song builds from a droning, guitar-driven introductory portion that mimics a train building up speed. Following the train noise, the band begins to enter, with percussion and keyboards playing chords in and out of key, after which the groove begins. The opening section consists of a
A minor measure, followed by one over
F and
G, before returning to . Author
Peter Doggett describes the section as a "slow, hypnotic instrumental march". The march lasts for more than three minutes before Bowie begins his vocals. After several verses, at the five-minute mark, a thud of drums signals a change of tempo and key and the band erupts into what Alan Light of
Rolling Stone calls a "celebratory groove", which lasts for the rest of the track. Doggett likens the section to a
progressive rock suite by the 1970s bands
Genesis and
Jethro Tull. Like the album, the entire song encompasses
art rock. The train sound effect was created by Slick using
flangers and delay effects. The noise pans from right to left across the stereo channels before fading out using
feedback, which Doggett likens to "disappearing into a tunnel". According to
Nicholas Pegg, the effect "acknowledges" the influence of the 1974 album
Autobahn by the German
electronic band
Kraftwerk, which begins with a car starting up and driving across the stereo speakers. Pegg believes another influence is from
Edgar Froese of the German electronic band
Tangerine Dream, whom Bowie befriended during his "Berlin" years (1977–1979); Froese's 1975 album
Epsilon in Malaysian Pale also begins with a train sound effect. However, he notes that the train is a
red herring in that it expresses what Bowie later called "the album's 'wayward spiritual search'". More specifically, it reinstates the "travelling metaphor" of earlier compositions: "the stations recall the 'new surroundings' of "
Rock 'n' Roll with Me" [from
Diamond Dogs], and the "mountains on mountains" reprise the questing motifs of "
Wild Eyed Boy from Freecloud" [from
David Bowie (1969)] and
The Man Who Sold the World." Bowie would later state, "the 'Station to Station' track itself is very much concerned with the
Stations of the Cross", It has been also described as "
Kraut-disco" by
Rolling Stone. Another possible influence is guitarist
Jimmy Page of the English rock band
Led Zeppelin. Page was a session musician on Bowie's earliest recordings and had been an occasional acquaintance ever since. During the same time Bowie became dependent on cocaine, Page had become dependent on
heroin, which Pegg considered "even more fearful" than Bowie's addiction. Led Zeppelin's
Physical Graffiti was released in February 1975, months ahead of the
Station to Station sessions. Pegg writes: "It's possible to discern in ["Station to Station"] a distinct flavour of the groove, tempo and sense of building tension created by the famous rising riff of
Physical Graffiti's standout track '
Kashmir'", an epic track that evokes a "troubled spiritual journey" through its music and lyrics. Bowie himself also credited German Krautrock-duo
Neu! with some influence on the track, especially "the setting of the aggressive guitar-drone against the almost-but-not-quite robotic/machine drumming of
Dinger". ==Lyrics==