"It's No Game" is a song written by David Bowie

David Bowie

David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...

 for the 1980 album Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)

Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)

Scary Monsters is an album by David Bowie, released in September 1980 by RCA Records. It was Bowie's final studio album for the label and his first following the so-called Berlin Trilogy of Low, "Heroes" and Lodger . Though considered significant in artistic terms, the trilogy had proved less...

, featuring lead guitar

Guitar

The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...

 played by Robert Fripp

Robert Fripp

Robert Fripp is an English guitarist, composer and record producer. He was ranked 42nd on Rolling Stone magazine's 2003 list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" and #47 on Gibson.com’s "Top 50 Guitarists of All Time". Among rock guitarists, Fripp is a master of crosspicking, a technique...

. The song is in two parts, opening and closing the album.

Music and lyrics

The song contains lyrics and a vocal melody borrowed from an early unreleased Bowie song called "Tired of My Life", demoed in 1970 but said to have been written when he was 16. It was considered the "most obvious target" of the Hee Bee Gee Bees

Hee Bee Gee Bees

The Hee Bee Gee Bees were a pop group formed initially to parody the Bee Gees towards the close of their sequence of high-pitched, disco-style hits. The 'band' consisted of the three Cribb brothers; Garry , Norris and Dobbin , performed respectively by Angus Deayton, Michael Fenton Stevens, and...

' Bowie parody "Quite Ahead of My Time" (1981), which featured a voice calling out the names of Japanese cars.

Part 1

The lyrics to "It's No Game (Part 1)" are spoken in Japanese by Michi Hirota, with Bowie screaming the English translation "as if he's literally tearing out his intestines", according to NME

NME

The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...

editors Roy Carr

Roy Carr

Roy Carr is an English music journalist. He joined the New Musical Express in the late 1960s and has edited NME, VOX and Melody Maker magazines...

 and Charles Shaar Murray

Charles Shaar Murray

Charles Shaar Murray is an English music journalist. His first experience in journalism came 1970 when he was asked to contribute to the satirical magazine Oz...

. Bowie said that he employed a strident female vocal "to break down a particular kind of sexist attitude" regarding Japanese girls and women in general.

Part 2

In contrast to the musical and vocal intensity of the first part, "It's No Game (Part 2)" is much calmer; NME

NME

The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...

editors Roy Carr

Roy Carr

Roy Carr is an English music journalist. He joined the New Musical Express in the late 1960s and has edited NME, VOX and Melody Maker magazines...

 and Charles Shaar Murray

Charles Shaar Murray

Charles Shaar Murray is an English music journalist. His first experience in journalism came 1970 when he was asked to contribute to the satirical magazine Oz...

 interpreted this as meaning that by the album's close, Bowie is "facing the same situation which he confronted when the album began, but with the force of his rage somewhat spent. Things haven't improved, but he's taking it better."

Other releases

• "It's No Game (Part 1)" was released as the B-side of the US version of the single "Ashes to Ashes
  Ashes to Ashes (David Bowie song)
  "Ashes to Ashes" is a single by David Bowie, released in 1980. It made #1 in the UK and was the first cut from the Scary Monsters album, also a #1 hit. As well as its musical qualities, it is noted for its innovative video, directed by Bowie and David Mallet...
  
  " in August 1980.
• In Japan it was released as a single in 1980 with "Fashion" as the B-side.

Cover versions

• Born to Worry - A version called "It's No Game Part 3" on the album Loving the Alien: Athens Georgia Salutes David Bowie.
• Nine Inch Nails
  Nine Inch Nails
  Nine Inch Nails is an American industrial rock project, founded in 1988 by Trent Reznor in Cleveland, Ohio. As its main producer, singer, songwriter, and instrumentalist, Reznor is the only official member of Nine Inch Nails and remains solely responsible for its direction...
  
   - Guitar samples from the Bowie song, slowed and in reverse, on "Pinion" from the EP Broken; the sample is more clearly heard in the intro tape played prior to most Nine Inch Nails concerts.