Bowie, using a 12-string acoustic guitar that had only six strings, played Rodgers a 2-chord pattern, which the latter would later describe as "dark sounding" and a "folk song"; Bowie wanted to call it "Let's Dance" and believed it to be a hit. Rodgers asked if he could arrange the music, moving it higher in the scale, switching the key up to B♭, inverting the chords and adding upstrokes. The two of them went on to record a demo on 19 and 20 December 1982 at Mountain Studios with a group of musicians, among them Erdal Kızılçay on bass. Kızılçay's work at first followed the stylings of Jaco Pastorius, but he and Rodgers ultimately worked out a simpler bassline for the song.