David Bowie is remembered for many reasons. His legacies do not pay adequate dues to the timing of his creativity. Although born in the beginning of 1947, he was borne a generation early. He was an artist – a visual and aural professional without any further aspirations. Perhaps fitting to pay tribute to his life by opening with a track from his Diamond Dogs album. Future Layout , was used to effectively set the emotional tone for the album, yet was an entirely spoken cut. No music, just narrative.
The Bono compilation, covered by Bowie and Marianne Faithful, I Got You ,, became more known for it's 'first white singer to feature on the soul influenced show The Midnight Special ' than for it's haunting and off tempo refrain. When popular taste was exploring electronic music, David 'celebrated' the fact with the single V-2 Schneider , , an electronic reference to Florian Schneider of the group Kraftwerk whom had influence on Bowie's writing. This collaborative spirit was evident from the very early days of his career. The cover song Everything's Alright ,by the Mojos drew acclaim, even although it is set in pure Merseybeat.
As a young boy, David Jones (who later changed his name to David Bowie) learned to play the Saxophone. This skill is shown in Neukülln ,, a haunting instrumental referencing restless Turks in West Berlin. From his second album released comes the unknown song Occasional Dreamer ,, a track that shot to the U.K. Hit parade the moment it was re-released. Almost as if he had to wait for the support to catch up with him.
Bowie wrote several soundtracks for movies and serials, such as Underground ,for the full length feature Labyrinthin 1986. He also performed Gloria ,, a cover song written by Van Morrison, entirely on tour for his Sound and Vision World Tour. This was a far cry from the first song he ever recorded back in 1964, a single called Hello Stranger ,. His influence by fellow artists keeps recurring throughout his work; his connection with Iggy Pop produced Tonight , to be sung with Tina Turner and recorded in 1984 for the album Tonight .
During his Berlin period, he was said to have been so influenced by Iggy Pop's hallucinogenic ramblings that TVC15 , was penned. It tells the tale of a young woman who is sucked into a television set. A further illustration of how forward Bowie was, was with the unexpected release of Where Are We Now , a single that was made available on iTunes on his 56 th birthday without any publicity or promotional support. By 3 pm that afternoon, it had ranked number 1 in the iTunes playlist in 8 countries. By the end of the day, it was no 1 in 17 countries – without assistance!
When asked to record a diary of his activities, David felt that his routine would be too boring. He is quoted as saying “Wake up. Go to studio. Record. Go home. Sleep. Who is interested in that?” So he recorded the diary of the fictitious Nathan Adler, a detective investigating the theft of creative thought. Included in that recording is one of three immediate no 1 tracks, namely Outside ,which was recorded and laid down within three days!
Maestro Bowie was not obsessed with sticking to his own arrangements. He really wanted to get into the large U.S. Market, and in '73 with the Aladin Sane album, he re-wrote the lyrics of Time , entirely, in order to resonate with the American populous. Very different from ten years later, when Without You , was written and released as a single on both sides of the Atlantic, eventually being included in his post Disco album Let's Dance.But this was not only an acceptance issue for Bowie – 2 years prior to Aladin Sane he had recorded Oh! You Pretty Things , for including in Hunky Dory, while Herman's Hermits had covered the same song and released it in the U.S. Of A. before Hunky Dory was released.
The track Night Flights ,was a cover of The Walker Brothers by Scott Engel released on the Black Tie White NoiseAlbum. This was very different from the I Pray, Olé , a track which had a gap of 12 years between the instruments and vocals being recorded, and the final mix being laid down.As the Millennium ticked over, his songs began to reflect the nihilistic nature of popular culture. This can be seen in New Killer Star , a song recorded in 2003 reflecting a post 9/11 life. This compares significantly with the Tin Machine 's first recording of '87 and cry ..
Fame ,the first U.S. Hit David Bowie achieved, was co-written by John Lennon. Further evidence of collaborative tendency was the inclusion on the Rise & Fall of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Marsalbum of a Ron Davis cover, It Ain't Easy ,. But his ability was never in question; the B side of the popular single from the mentioned album was Velvet Goldmine , a self penned provocative ballad that was rejected by most commercial radio stations. (Self compiled play lists were not a thing in the mid 70's !) Bowie has consistently claimed that his personal favourite song came from his 1971 album, his fourth, and was titled Eight Line Poem ..
Eight Line Poementrenched the androgynous glam rock period of David Bowie's earlier work. This Persona was created earlier when he sang I Can't Read ,, a debut single for his band Tin Machine. Inevitably (this was the Seventies) cocaine addiction was identified when he sang Golden Years . Taking recluse in Berlin where he shared an apartment with Iggy Pop, David underwent rehabilitation and produced and sang Heroes in 1977. He returned to perform a concert in the same city 10 years later, and set up at the Reistag with the Wall backing the stage. During the singing of this song, the sound of over a thousand voices could be heard singing along from beyond the wall, from the Eastern quarters. Such a phenomena had never been experienced before, making his the first pop icon to receive popular support from the East Berlin peoples.
Bowie's ability to pass social commentary whilst fueling social expression was again demonstrated with This Is Not America . This song, from the soundtrack to The Falcon and the Snowman , was inspired after witnessing the opening of the first MacDonalds store in Java.
In the early 1990's Bowie met with John Lennon as part of his strategy to break into the United States markets. It was at that meeting that Lennon suggested to Bowie that Bowie manage himself, and to release his manager. This advice was taken, and it was then that Bowie understood the true significance of the Managing Contract. The rights to every song penned by Bowie up until that time belonged to his manager.
This meant, by way of example, that iconic tracks like Fashion – part of the backdrop to the 2012 London Olympic closing ceremony, would have earned Bowie nothing, but his axed manager would still have received royalties in perpetuity.
David set about to right this wrong, and created securities in his potential earnings. He sold shares in his popularity for the future 10 years. Underwritten by the Prudential Insurance Company, when these bonds were released in1993, rating agency Moodys rated the bonds as AAA, a very high and stable value. This helped in attracting investors, and by so doing David Bowie was able to raise 53 million dollars based on his future earnings! This money was used to buy the rights for the 287 songs held by his ex- manager. Ten years later (the duration of the bond issue) Bowie had managed to repay the investors with a 7.9% growth at a time when U.S. Treasury was giving just over 6%. Thus by 2004 David Bowie owned all his own material and he alone collected all royalties and dues for playing time.These events might well enrich an understanding of his (arguably) most complex song I Have Not Been To Oxford Town off the Outside album recorded in 1995. Compare this track with Valentines Day , the last single ever recorded live, and the differences are obvious. But such was the caliber of all his output. The 2002 album Heathenhas a track Everyone Says Hi which was recorded and laid down before the Twin Towers 9/11 attack, yet the lyrics of this song are chillingly reflective of a post 9/11 America.
His innovative creativity saw many taboos being questioned throughout the 5 decades of his life. In 2013 the video of his single Next Day earned the dubious award of being the first of his music videos to be banned from You Tube. The banning was lifted within the week, but the stigma remained, even so late in his career.A side of Bowie not often known is his instrumental arrangement Ian Fish U.K. Heir off the All Saints Compilation.He had 150 copies pressed and released for family and friends only in 1993. Ten years later the album was re-released for public distribution. Not everything he touched turned to sold. In 87 his title track from the album Never Let Me Down was a flop, yet it remained one of his personal favourite tracks. A similar tale could be told of his 1986 single '87 And Cry.
David Bowie embraced technology. By 1996, when Internet 1.0 was only just emerging, Bowie set up BowieNet, an ISP that was to foreshadow MySpace and Friendster yet offer the connectivity of You Tube, Twitter and Facebook. He created Bowiebanc, an online banking portal with credit card capabilities. His single New Angels Of Promise was released online two weeks before it was physically released, and 300,000 copies were downloaded. This at a time when the average person spent 30 minutes online a month.He told the New York Times in 2002 that “music itself is going to become like running water or electricity” At a time when streaming simply did not exist. Reflecting again on his album Heathenand another track, I took A Trip On A Gemini Spacecraft, whereby post 9/11 life in America was depicted chillingly accurately in an album recorded in 2001. To further embellish his broad talent, he created New Career In A New Town, an instrumental track that was only ever used as a backing track when he and his band walked on stage. When asked to sing a cover to the song My Way made popular by Frank Sinatra, he rewrote and created Even a Fool Learns To Love, a rework of the lyrics without changing the arrangement or music in any way. And it worked.
David Robert Jones (David Bowie)
January 8 1947 – January 10 2016
Rest In Peace
