Songfacts®:

• Producer, Brian Eno, devised a set of "Oblique Strategies" cards that contained cryptic "instructions" to help with the recording of the Heroes album. Eno and Bowie would select a card at random, keeping it a secret from the other. Bowie selected "Emphasise differences" while Eno selected "Try to make everything as similar as possible" and it was this paradox which formed the basis for this dark but ambient instrumental piece. Eno said: "It was like a game. We took turns working on it; he'd do one overdub and I'd do the next, and he'd do the next…I was trying to smooth it out and make it into one continuum [while] he was trying to do the opposite."
• In 1977, Stanley Dorfman directed this very obscure video of Bowie performing mime while this song plays.