Chronology gets a bit out of step here but I keep this album next to the previous one as they are linked by time. Bowie left Deram records and signed with Philips and had a massive hit, “Space Oddity”, you may know it. When this happened Decca (Deram was a subsidiary label of Decca) pushed out this cash-in release as part of their “World Of…” series. They cobbled together some tracks from “David Bowie” and a few others, stuck a picture of “Space Oddity” era Bowie on the cover and rushed it out. A few years later when Ziggy Stardust made the big time they re-issued this album with a picture of Ziggy on the cover…sneaky. You might think so but apparently Bowie himself approved the track list so it had his blessing.

As for that track list, this album contains all but 4 of the songs from 1967’s album “David Bowie” (“We Are Hungry Men”, “Join The Gang”, “Maid Of Bond Street” and “Please Mr Gravedigger” didn’t make the cut) plus “The London Boys”, the b-side of 1966 single “Rubber Band”,  and 2 previously unreleased recordings “Let Me Sleep Beside You” and “In The Heat Of The Morning”.

“The London Boys” is a kitchen sink drama that concerns itself with its protagonist moving to the big smoke and trying to get in with the local Mod faces around Soho, and seemingly succeeding, but on a very superficial level.

“Let Me Sleep Beside You” is a hippy-ish 60’s pop song which always strikes me would have suited The Monkees, and particularly Davy Jones very well…ironic huh ?

Finally “In The Heat Of The Morning”, another song (along with the previous “Let Me Sleep Beside You”) Bowie returned to on “Toy” but which in 1968 was apparently regarded by its writer as something of a throwaway, describing it at the time as “top ten rubbish”. Deram rejected it as a single and that seems to have broken the relationship between singer and label and off he went to Philips Records.

Let Me Sleep Beside You - https://youtu.be/U_hX482pLbE