A little photo essay with musical accompaniment

Download: Children of The Revolution – T. Rex (mp3)

Download: The Prettiest Star – David Bowie (mp3)

Download: The In Crowd – Bryan Ferry (mp3)

It was easy to knock Gary Numan (he ripped off David Bowie, voted Conservative, and stared meaningfully at little pyramids on his album sleeves) and knock him I did. I used to have a Saturday job in the record department of a WH Smith’s in the late 70s/early 80s when Numan was the biggest thing since sliced bread. One day these two teenage girls came in dressed up in full Numanoid regalia — black military jackets, black eyeliner etc. — and bought one of his records. While serving them I gave a condescending little smile and told them how Numan was just a Bowie rip-off and if they only heard “Low” and “Diamond Dogs” they’d realize where he got his whole act from and see the error of their ways. Even though it was only a WH Smith* and I was wearing a brown blazer I was still the sort of insufferably smug twat you can get in real record shops. Not surprisingly they ignored me, all they did was come in to buy a record and they got a lecture from the four-eyed wanker behind the counter (did I mention I was wearing a brown blazer?)

What I didn’t tell those young ladies was that I owned a copy of the Tubeway Army single “Down In The Park” and loved it (still do.) This came out before “Are ‘Friends’ Electric?” made him a star which could be another reason why my snobby 17-year-old self thought it was OK, it was never tainted by the charts (or young girls buying it in WH Smith’s). Thankfully I grew out of that attitude long ago.

Download: Down In The Park – Tubeway Army (mp3)
Buy: “Replicas” (album)

*I say only a WH Smith’s but the staff were mostly young music nuts like myself and we were often the only place on Putney High Street that had things like the new Jam single in picture sleeve (most important) so we used to get a lot of Mods and Punks coming in. I first heard “Unknown Pleasures” while working there too.

As a young whippersnapper I think I first became interested in David Bowie because of the science fiction elements in some of his songs. He fitted in very nicely with the Marvel comics and episodes of “The Tomorrow People” that were the staples of my cultural diet back then.

To me, “Space Oddity” didn’t have any deep subtext about alienation or even drugs (I swear I never even knew what drugs were), but was just something to do with astronauts and rockets, and “Life On Mars” wasn’t about… well, I’ve never understood what that was about but it had the word “Mars” in the title so I thought it was dead good. Plus, the guy looked like an alien himself most of the time, you really did half expect him to climb into a spaceship and fly away after he’d finished giving Mick Ronson’s guitar a blow job.

Bowie resurrected Major Tom (and his own career) on the 1980 single “Ashes To Ashes” which probably had more subtext and hidden meanings than any song in the history of popular music. A few months before that he actually released another version of “Space Oddity” itself which appeared on the b-side of his rather peculiar cover of “Alabama Song.” This is light years (ha!) away from the lush, Stylophone-tripping production of the original with a stripped-down, minimalist instrumentation like John Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band album. The primitive sound gives the song a more emotional edge and Bowie puts far more feeling and angst into it, as if in this post-Berlin stage of his life being lost forever in the cold darkness of space wasn’t the groovy idea he thought it was as a fresh-faced flower child in 1969.

He first sang this version on the 1979 Kenny Everett New Year’s Eve television show while sitting in a padded cell – so Major Tom wasn’t only now a junkie but a looney too? Or is it all really about Inner Space and is Major Tom really Bowie himself? So many questions that I really used to care a lot about.

This turned up as a bonus track on a CD of the “Scary Monsters” album issued in the early 90s but I’m not sure where you can get it now.

Download: Space Oddity (1980 version) – David Bowie (mp3)

The occasion for the glittering array of rock royalty above was a “retirement” party for Ziggy Stardust at the Café Royal, London in July 1973 (also known as The Last Supper). No doubt Lou and David are discussing heroin and eyeliner while Mick is supressing an urge for a Mars Bar. But who is the young lady on the right playing with David’s hair? Why it’s none other than wee Scottish popster Lulu who looks about as out of place as a pork pie at a Bar Mitzvah.

Bowie thought Lulu was a “great little artiste” and when they got chatting at the party he invited her down to the Chateau d’Herouville in France where he was recording his “Pin Ups” album with the idea of them making a record together. The result was a Lulu single with Bowie’s “The Man Who Sold The World” on the A-side and “Watch That Man” on the flip. The glamtastic version of the former gives you an idea of what it would have sounded like if it had been on the Ziggy album. Instead of the spacey folk of the original this is a chunky stomper featuring Mick Ronson on guitar and Bowie’s honking, nasal sax playing (he’s singing backing vocals too). I’m not sure Lulu understands what the song is about, but then again I’m not sure anybody does.

This was the first version of the song I ever heard and I have vivid memories of Lulu singing it on Top of The Pops trying her best to look moody and androgynous in a suit and fedora. This clip is from the German TV show Musikladen but it’s the same outfit. They should bring back suits for women, that Yves Saint Laurent look was very sexy.

I like the fact that Bowie has never been afraid to spend his artistic credibility working with acts that aren’t exactly, shall we say, trendy, like Lulu, Queen and Bing Crosby. Much as I love him, somehow I can’t imagine Bryan Ferry working with Cilla Black on a cover of “Do The Strand”.

Download: The Man Who Sold The World – Lulu (mp3)
Buy: “Oh! You Pretty Things: The Songs Of David Bowie (album)