"Golden Years" is a song written and recorded by David Bowie in 1975. It was originally released in a shortened form as a single in November 1975, and in its full-length version in January the following year on the Station to Station album. It was the first track completed during the Station to Station sessions, a period when Bowie's cocaine addiction was at its peak. At one stage it was slated to be the album's title track.

When it first appeared as a single in 1975, "Golden Years" presented a somewhat skewed view of the forthcoming album, being more similar in style to the Young Americans funk/soul material from earlier in 1975 than the rest of Station to Station. The latter foreshadowed the Krautrock-influenced Euro-centric and electronic music that Bowie would move into with his late-1970s 'Berlin Trilogy'.

Bowie was looking to emulate something of the glitzy nostalgia of "On Broadway", which he was playing on piano in the studio when he came up with "Golden Years". He has said that he offered it to Elvis Presley to perform, but that Presley declined it. Both Angela Bowie and Ava Cherry claim to have been the inspiration for the song.

Bowie allegedly got drunk to perform the song for the American TV show Soul Train; at the time he was one of the few white artists to appear on the program. The resultant video clip was used to promote the single, and assisted Bowie's continued commercial success in the United States, where it charted for 16 weeks and reached No. 10 in early-1976. It achieved No. 8 in the UK and No. 17 in Canada. The song was also a top ten hit in Ireland, the Netherlands and Sweden. As a digital download, it reached number four in the Hungarian singles chart in 2016.

"Golden Years" was played sporadically by Bowie on the 1976 tour, if at all, but regularly on the 1983, 1990 and 2000 tours. It appears on the 1983 concert film Serious Moonlight. The song was used as the theme song of Stephen King's Golden Years, and in the pilot of the CBS series Swingtown. The song was also used in the movie "A Knights Tale"(2001) starring Heath Ledger.

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