Bowie himself took a step to potentially make his original recording of “Cat People (Putting Out Fire)” obsolete. Just nine months after it was released as a single, Bowie recorded a new version of the song. Here’s why Bowie felt the need to give it another try.
Bowie was recruited to record the theme song to the 1982 erotic thriller Cat People, which was a remake of the original 1942 film. Director Paul Schrader and composer Giorgio Moroder, who wrote the score for the film, agreed Bowie was the right person to record the theme song.
Moroder and Bowie created a song that effectively conveyed the otherworldly mood of Cat People. Their version of “Cat People (Putting Out Fire)” begins slowly, with atmospheric synths and percussion.
Drums and guitars don’t make their entrance until nearly two minutes have elapsed, when Bowie’s cool and controlled vocals suddenly explode with energy. Synths and percussion remain as important elements of the song’s sound throughout, but the presence of studio whizzes like guitarist Michael Landau, bassist Leland Sklar, and drummer Keith Forsey gives it a rock edge.
“Cat People,” Take Two
As was his wont, Bowie decided he wanted his follow-up album to Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) to have a different sound. Towards that end, he worked with Nile Rodgers as his co-producer for Let’s Dance. In Chris O’Leary’s 2019 book Ashes to Ashes: The Songs of David Bowie 1976-2016, Rodgers is noted as having said, “The way ‘Cat People’ came out on the soundtrack really bothered him. He didn’t like it at all.”
In addition to wanting to record a version that was more in line with his original demo, Bowie wanted to have a rendition of “Cat People (Putting Out Fire)” that would fit in with the brighter, jauntier sound of Let’s Dance. The contrast between the remake and the original is apparent right from the start, as Rodgers introduces the newer version with a dirty guitar riff. Bowie explained his more straightforward approach to his second attempt at the song in a 1983 interview, saying, “I took the instruments away. They’re not quite so integrally important to the music on this album. It’s far more just a very simple base to put the lyrics and the melody on. They don’t weave quite such a magic spell over the construction of the lyrics, or lend an ambience to the lyrics. They get the chords right and that’s about all I wanted to do.”
