"Only a Downstat" is a Tubeway Army song about a person who has been judged a deviant in a dystopian society ("A violator of the law of no feelings / They should be put in the chair").

The song's title is a Scientology reference, a 'downstat' being a person whose productivity has decreased, or a decrease in productivity itself. It is an example of writer Gary Numan's use of odd neologisms lifted from eclectic sources.

The character has been incarcerated in a prison of some sort where he awaits euthanasia ("the cure is always death") and proudly shows off the official badge of his stigmata, the number 7. He writes letters and poetry to people who will never read them and who don't know or care that he is alive, one of the last poets and lovers in a world where having feelings is a serious crime.

Though recorded during the Replicas sessions in 1979 and displaying similar themes, musically the song is more in the style of the debut Tubeway Army album released in 1978, being primarily guitar-driven with an unpolished synthesizer line grafted on top.

The track remained in the vaults until Beggars Banquet, Numan's label from 1978-1983, issued a series of EPs in 1985 featuring previously unreleased recordings, companions to the 1984 release of an album's worth of early Tubeway Army demos known as The Plan. The track also appears on CD reissues of Replicas.

Gary Numan songs