The Man Who Sold the World (43 page)

In October 2003, the fifty-six-year-old Bowie embarked on what was intended to be a solid year of touring, performing an anything but predictable mixture of material old and new. It was a punishing schedule, which took its toll on his voice, and then his health. A concert in Oslo during June 2004 was interrupted when a fan threw a lollipop at the stage and hit Bowie in the eye. Five days later, in Prague, Bowie was forced to leave the stage after suffering what was described officially as a trapped nerve. He completed one more show, in Germany, before being hospitalized for emergency heart surgery. Since then, his live appearances have been restricted to cameos, and even they dried up after he introduced comedian Ricky Gervais onstage at a New York festival in May 2007. His most recent appearance on record came the following year, as fleeting guest vocalist on Scarlett Johansson's debut album. He chivalrously described her as “mystical and twice cool,” and then stepped into an elegant, unannounced retirement.

 

IV

In vanishing from the stage, Bowie was only repeating his effective disengagement from society in the late seventies. He exited the culture and history of that decade when he left Berlin for the closeted life of an exile, protected by wealth and fame from the vicissitudes of politics, economics, and social instability. He would continue to comment on the world around him, but necessarily as an outsider—concerned or even outraged, perhaps, but not actually affected. He inhabited a world of his own making, and made no attempt to sell that world to his audience. Indeed, his world was constructed precisely to keep the outside at bay. Instead, like every entertainer of his stature, he sold his own celebrity, and never more successfully than when he was repeating the past, rather than trying to create a future. Meanwhile, the world continued to turn, unmoved by Bowie's inconsistent musical output, but still caught in the idealized shadow of his golden decade.

There was no shame in that fate: few if any of his peers, especially those who enjoyed his degree of success, have maintained any sense of vitality in their careers beyond ten or at most twenty years of creative innovation. (The possible exception to this rule is Bob Dylan, for whom innovation consists of willfully defying expectations while retaining a gloriously enigmatic mystique.) In any case, innovation is hard to sustain when one's audience clearly prefers familiar pleasures. Albums such as
1.Outside
and
Earthling
stand up alongside the peaks of Bowie's seventies catalogue as exercises in inventiveness and daring; what they lack is meaning, any sense that they are shaping the culture around them or engaging in a dialogue with other artists. When the world refuses to let you change, and your body tells you to stop, it is more dignified to remain silent than to fight against the inevitable.

Bowie could be forgiven for feeling disappointed in a culture that celebrated him as a mercurial figure in a constant state of reinventing himself, and then refused to let him continue that process beyond 1980. Yet he had already achieved more in the previous decade than anyone around him, and the wider world is still assimilating the bewildering twists and curves of his trajectory through that decade. The echoes of his pioneering musical experiments have reverberated through the last thirty years—leaving their mark on the Gothic gloom of the tradition that extended from the post-punk exploits of the Cure through the industrial metal of Nine Inch Nails to the grunge rock of Nirvana and beyond. His daring synthesis of black and white genres—the rock/funk/soul hybrid that fired his classic mid-seventies albums—was assimilated so successfully into the mainstream that it was sometimes hard to remember exactly how shocking Bowie's original innovation had been. Artists as important, yet as profoundly different, as Madonna, Kurt Cobain, U2, Radiohead, and Prince were proud to admit how indebted they were. So pervasive was the influence of Bowie's seventies work, in fact, like that of the Beatles before him, that it has become part of the fabric of contemporary music, just as his unique sense of style, and the sexual playfulness at its heart, have helped to form our contemporary notions of fashion, art, and design.

Yet his career has left another equally significant mark on those who followed him. Nearly forty years after he invented Ziggy Stardust, his subversive attitude toward the creation of fame still provides the likes of Lady Gaga with a template to follow. There is a valid case, in fact, for awarding Bowie the dubious credit of being the inventor of modern celebrity culture, in which a nonentity can be thrust into the maelstrom of media attention by virtue of a single appearance on a reality TV series or a talent show. But there is a profound difference between Bowie's self-manufacturing as a superstar in the early seventies and the culture of
The X Factor
and
Big Brother
. Bowie was using stardom as a vehicle to explore deeper personal and social issues, from the apocalyptic decline of Western society to his own perilous sense of fragmentation; artifice and irony were his weapons. In the twenty-first century, celebrity is its own reward, and today's instant superstars are selling nothing more momentous than their own fame. Artifice has become reality; irony has lost its purpose. Communication is instant and ceaseless, but nothing is being said. No wonder that David Bowie, who always had something to communicate, has chosen to follow Major Tom into isolated silence, a private painter now rather than a public performer, a distant observer of a world that he had once illuminated and enriched.

APPENDIX: THE SONGS OF DAVID BOWIE: 1963–1968

[A1] I NEVER DREAMED

(Jones/Dodds)

Recorded by the Kon-Rads, August 1963; unreleased

Not content with performing pop hits such as “Let's Dance,” “Do You Wanna Dance,” “Sheila,” and “Ginny Come Lately” for local audiences in South London, Bowie encouraged his colleagues in the Kon-Rads to seek out a recording contract. The Beatles' stunning success with self-composed material, bypassing the need for songs from professionals in London's “Tin Pan Alley,” suggested that the Kon-Rads should pursue a similar route. Bowie was eager to prove himself the creative fulcrum of the band, without the expertise to back up his naïve self-confidence.

In advance of what proved to be an ill-fated audition for Decca Records, the Kon-Rads recorded several versions of the song they had chosen as their most commercial asset. The tape survived in the archive of the band's drummer, David Hadfield. “I Never Dreamed” was probably composed by Bowie with the assistance of guitarist Alan Dodds; Hadfield remembered that Bowie would present the Kon-Rads with fragmentary ideas for songs, which the more proficient Dodds would shape into acceptable form. “There was one about a plane crash,” Hadfield recalled. But no such drama infiltrated the mundane teenage narrative of “I Never Dreamed,” which was indistinguishable from other beat groups eager to emulate the success of the Beatles. Only the cocky charm of Bowie's vocal, and a Cockney swagger in his vowels, hinted at what was to come.

 

[A2] LIZA JANE

(Conn)

Recorded by Davie Jones & the King Bees, May 1964; single A-side

When entrepreneur Leslie Conn was introduced to Bowie's second band, the King Bees, he saw not only an energetic bunch of young men who might, perhaps, rival the Rolling Stones, but also a quick source of music publishing income. It was a tradition in the fifties for managers, agents, producers, and publishers to be listed as composers of rock'n'roll and pop songs, regardless of their creative input: the businessmen were assured of a potentially lucrative cut of the record's royalties, while the artists were usually too ignorant or intimidated to complain.

This plague was in decline by 1964, but Leslie Conn still argued that he deserved the meager earnings from the King Bees' debut single because he had hammered the tyro efforts of Bowie and George Underwood into commercial shape. In fact, none of the would-be composers could claim much originality, as “Liza Jane” was based on a tune passed down through both the folk and gospel/blues traditions (usually as “Little Liza Jane”). Bowie could easily have heard earlier renditions by Lonnie Donegan, Nina Simone, or Fats Domino, though his version owed more to white predecessors than black. It was clearly intended to rival the Rolling Stones (compare the guitar solo and wolf whistles to the Stones' “Walking the Dog”) and the Yardbirds, though without the finesse of either. At seventeen, Bowie hadn't learned how to roar without rasping, and his R&B vocal style was painfully rough, often indecipherable (the second verse evades transcription) and ultimately clumsy. Tackling the final verse a major third above the melody line was a vain attempt to fabricate extra excitement—and it failed to convince more than a few hundred record buyers to invest in the King Bees' solitary release.

 

[A3] LOUIE LOUIE GO HOME

(Revere/Lindsay)

Recorded by Davie Jones & the King Bees, May 1964; single B-side

The successor to the Kingsmen's hit “Louie Louie” by the slick US garage band Paul Revere & the Raiders wasn't issued in Britain, so the King Bees must have been sold this generic R&B romp by its Tin Pan Alley publisher. While the Raiders had aped a key feature of the Isley Brothers' “Shout”—briefly softening the mood before a tempestuous finale—the King Bees' pedestrian cover never slackened its relentless plod. Bowie's inadequacy as a blues shouter was exposed even more nakedly than on “Liza Jane,” with an occasional London vowel escaping his mid-Atlantic growl.

 

[A4] I PITY THE FOOL

(Malone)

Recorded by the Manish Boys, January 1965; single A-side; alternate take on
Early On
CD

David Jones was introduced to the Manish Boys, an R&B band from Maidstone in Kent, as a recording artist who already had the offer of an American tour under his belt. This entirely imaginary promise was enough to convince the Manish Boys (named after a Muddy Waters blues tune) to accept Bowie as their frontman.

There being no perceived shame in British R&B bands covering songs by black American blues artists, the Manish Boys were happy to follow the example of their more successful peers, such as the Rolling Stones (who had recently reached No. 1 in Britain with “Little Red Rooster”) and the Animals. Originally recorded (and probably written, despite the credit on the record) by R&B veteran Bobby “Blue” Bland in 1961, “I Pity the Fool” hinged around the contradiction between the dismissive lyrics and Bland's despairing vocals. Producer Shel Talmy recommended the song to Bowie, whose seasoned delivery, variation of attack, and acute sense of timing displayed an admirable flowering of technique since his first single and showed how swiftly he could step into character with unfamiliar material. The tightly controlled arrangement—with Bowie alternating between an elegant croon and a pleading cry an octave higher—created a sense of tension sustained by a typically pointed guitar solo from session musician Jimmy Page. The near-identical alternative take differed only in the order that Bowie tackled the verses.

When “I Pity the Fool” was released, Conn and Bowie reprised the “long hair” scandal of November 1964 to some effect, with the cooperation of the BBC—all sides agreeing to pretend that the group would not be allowed on-screen unless Bowie cut his hair. An honorable compromise was reached, and the Manish Boys duly appeared on the quaintly named “youth” show
Gadzooks! It's All Happening
. But it wasn't, for the Manish Boys at least, and Bowie quickly abandoned the group. “He was probably aiming higher than the rest of us,” keyboardist Bob Solly reflected. “He was more ruthless. At the time, his departure seemed bloody-minded and disloyal. But I think he was a nice fellow who sometimes had to be nasty in order to get on. He had no other thought in his head than success. He was absolutely positive that he would succeed.”

 

[A5] TAKE MY TIP

(Jones)

Recorded by the Manish Boys, January 1965; single B-side; alternate take on
Early On
CD

Bowie's unexpectedly sophisticated baptism as a songwriter on record is unlike anything else in his catalogue, owing more to jazz-inspired hipsters such as Jon Hendricks and Oscar Brown (and their British counterpart Georgie Fame) than to the R&B standards in his early repertoire. The core of the song was simple: a two-chord vamp over which Bowie dropped slick Americanisms as if he'd melded the spirits of Jack Kerouac and Frank Sinatra. Only the errant vowel sound of “act
tall
” took him out of his depth. The conspicuous blue note (C in the key of A) in the horn/vocal melody en route to the chorus suggested that Bowie had written the basics on saxophone, and asked the group to arrange it—perhaps supplying the three-semitone descent with which the song opened, and the more surprising three-chord slide that guided them back from B major toward the original F#. Shel Talmy was sufficiently impressed to pass the song to Kenny Miller, whom he was grooming as a potential teen idol, and who duly became the first outsider to record Bowie's material. Fresh from a No. 1 single in similar vein with “Yeah Yeah,” Georgie Fame might have been a more profitable target.

 

[A6] YOU'VE GOT A HABIT OF LEAVING

(Jones)

Recorded by Davy Jones (and the Lower Third), July 1965; single A-side

Moving relentlessly on, Bowie swiftly assumed control of the Lower Third, as he had the Manish Boys. Though American R&B remained their primary source of inspiration, their role models were closer to home, in the form of two London bands with whom they shared a producer, the Kinks and the Who. The teen aggression and Pop Art pretensions of the Who certainly left their mark on the sound of this record, which appeared—to the alarm of the Lower Third—as a “Davy Jones” solo release. Meanwhile, the Kinks' trademark shift from the tonic chord to the major second (“You Really Got Me” being the most memorable example) was the root of this flagrant attempt at echoing Ray Davies's composing style. Lyrically minimal, harmonically banal, the song briefly established a hint of tension that dissipated with Bowie's maudlin admission, “sometimes I cry.” The Who's influence was highlighted as Bowie imitated Roger Daltrey's macho vocalizing, before a briefly explosive guitar solo that was clearly intended to rival the “auto-destruction” of that group's “Anyway Anyhow Anywhere” [see 86], after which the tune subsided painfully back into its undistinguished theme.

 

[A7] BABY LOVES THAT WAY

(Jones)

Recorded by Davy Jones (and the Lower Third), July 1965; single B-side

Nineteen sixty-five was the year when the Detroit-based Motown label extended beyond a Mod cult in Britain and entered the mainstream, leaving its mark on everyone from the Small Faces (“Whatcha Gonna Do About It”) to the Rolling Stones (whose cover of Marvin Gaye's “Hitch Hike” showed how difficult it was to reproduce the effervescence of the Motor City sound). In keeping with his freshly coiffeured Mod aesthetic, Bowie channeled Gaye's peacock pride into this jaunty blend of Motown and the Kinks (the guitar solo had all the anarchy of a Dave Davies creation). The song opened with a stuttering variation on a D chord that anticipated the launch of “The Jean Genie” [65], sold the chorus immediately like a soap commercial, and settled into a two-chord swagger in which the confusion of the narrative (who's actually in control?) was overpowered by the easy precision of Bowie's phrasing. Like the best of the Small Faces or their more obscure Mod rivals the Action, “Baby Loves That Way” is a time capsule of London's mid-sixties clubland.

 

[A8] THAT'S WHERE MY HEART IS

(Bowie)

Recorded ca. October 1965;
Early On
CD

David Jones became David Bowie for professional purposes in September 1965, but he retained his given name for legal purposes (and has ever since). It was Jones, therefore, who signed a one-year publishing deal with Sparta Music, to coincide with the Lower Third's move from Parlophone to Pye Records. The Sparta contract required him to emulate Lennon and McCartney by providing material that other artists—with, the publishers hoped, a higher commercial profile than Bowie himself—might be able to record. He duly set out to prove himself a one-man hit factory, while borrowing shamelessly from all around him. Five of the songs he wrote in late 1965 were retrieved from Shel Talmy's archive for an anthology of Bowie's early work, revealing that his ambitions extended far beyond the R&B/soul mood of his singles. Regardless of their style, what linked these songs was their clumsy sense of structure and melodic development.

“That's Where My Heart Is”
*
epitomized the best and worst of Bowie's calculations, mixing an amusing impression of P. J. Proby's histrionic baritone with a Burt Bacharach–style chorus apparently fashioned for the equally hysterical Gene Pitney, and a mock-religious “middle eight” that served only to extend the song beyond ninety seconds. Straining in the upper register, however, Bowie hinted at how he would croon “Wild Is the Wind” [131] a decade later.

His earliest efforts at songwriting were crafted at home, where he discovered the joys of overdubbing for the first time: “I borrowed someone else's tape recorder. I'd just record a basic track on one tape machine, then play that back through the speaker, sing to it and play guitar parts over it onto the other tape recorder, backwards and forwards until there was nothing left but tape hiss, with the idea of a melody for a song way in the background.” From there he graduated to a demo studio “that Bill Wyman used . . . because it was very, very cheap,” before being encouraged by Talmy to work at his IBC Studio in central London. No matter where they were made, however, none of these demos provoked any interest from other artists.

 

[A9] I WANT MY BABY BACK

(Bowie)

Recorded ca. October 1965;
Early On
CD

Another borrowed title (from a macabre US hit by Jimmy Cross, covered in Britain by the Downliners Sect) adorned an attractively maudlin venture into the falsetto-led sound of contemporary hits by the Rockin' Berries (“He's in Town”) and the Tokens. With its double-tracked vocals and confident use of familiar chord progressions from the vocal group era of the 1950s, “I Want My Baby Back” used many of the tricks employed by the Beatles on their
With the Beatles
LP in 1963. Even the surge from D minor to D major in the approach to the chorus had a Lennon-McCartney flavor. Sadly, an almost incoherent middle section spread contagion on everything around it, dooming the song to obscurity.

 

[A10] BARS OF THE COUNTY JAIL

(Bowie)

Recorded ca. October 1965;
Early On
CD