The opening track on David Bowie’s Hunky Dory is “Changes.”
“Changes” begins the album with a distinctive piano-led arrangement and a lyric about artistic reinvention, generational conflict and the instability of identity. Its placement is significant: the song announces the stylistic transformation Bowie was making after the harder-rock sound of The Man Who Sold the World.
Hunky Dory was recorded in 1971 and released by RCA that December. Although it initially sold modestly, the album gained a much larger audience after The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars made Bowie a major star. “Changes” later became one of his signature songs.
Listeners sometimes confuse the opening track with “Oh! You Pretty Things,” which follows it on side one, or “Kooks,” which appears later on the album. “Queen Bitch” is also on Hunky Dory, but it closes the first side rather than opening the record.