The fifth and second-to-last song on Station to Station could be construed lyrically as Bowie struggling with the monotony of drug addiction, cocaine-addled and fueled trying to work up, a bit too casually, and monotonously (in careless monotones), the courage to ask the song’s love interest for companionship, to “stay”, or “do something”, in a passionate plea that’s both aloof and frenetic, earnestly deceptive, words emoted with the precision and confusion that gives them meaning, quintessentially Bowie.

“Stay”', over six minutes on the album of six songs is also a showcase jam for the distinct guitar prowess of both Earl Slick and Carlos Alomar, their rock and funk jam punctuated by George Murray’s massive bass thump, soulfully during the 2-minute long intro which dazzles and raises the bar for the thin white duke to start-in with the vocal delivery.

Musically the track is an intricate rhythm amalgam, featuring the jazz chops of Alomar, Murray, and Dennis Davis on drums. Alomar solidified and expanded the song’s structure based on Bowie’s quick rendition of chords and sung vocal melody; after jamming, the trio “gave the song back to him”, i.e., to Bowie, per Alomar. Whether Bowie was riveted or apathetic, the results were stellar:

The beat has a frenetic feel, within the funk gyrations within 4/4 time about to tip into ¾, in a sort of dance suspense, and so it does after each verse, each harmonically jazzed-up on dominant 9 chords, giving Bowie’s vocal lines power in triplets, i.e., “change-in-the weather,” “hap-pened-to you,” “make me de-light”, yet with an aloofness to set up the emotional gravitas of the chorus, which goes from apologetic plea to passive observation: ”…you can never really tell when somebody wants something you want too", distant and abstracted like a robot or alien, and yet so honestly human.