The Man Who Sold the World

by Peter Doggett

  194 “on a splintered tree stump”: Ibid., p. 186.

  195 “After seeing A Clockwork Orange”: RS, June 8, 1972.

  195 “I got most of the look”: Quoted in Paytress, Classic Rock Albums, p. 97.

  196 “the idea of conscious stylisation”: Quoted in Luytens and Hislop, 70s Style and Design, p. 12.

  196 “cosmic Clockwork Orange jumpsuits”: Bowie and Rock, Moonage Daydream, p. 80.

  196 “impossibly silly ‘bunny’ costume”: Ibid.

  197 “He had just unleashed”: To Timothy White, Musician, July 1990.

  197 “He has an unusual face”: Interview, June 1973.

  198 “there are no rules”: Quoted in Luytens and Hislop, 70s Style and Design, p. 18.

  198 “Life is so boring”: Angry Brigade Communique #7.

  198 “The next religion might come”: Friends, October 30, 1970.

  200 “The idea was to fuck the sound up”: To Tony Horkins, International Musician, December 1991.

  201 “They were mostly older producer”: To Howard Bloom, Circus, July 1973.

  202 “a very cold person”: To Timothy Ferris, RS, November 9, 1972.

  203 “I don’t think Aladdin is as clearly”: To C. S. Murray, NME, January 27, 1973.

  203 “my interpretation of what America”: To Howard Bloom, Circus, July 1973.

  203 “Aladdin Sane was a schizophrenic”: Cracked Actor TV documentary.

  204 “I thought [Aladdin] would probably”: To Kurt Loder, RS, April 23, 1987.

  205 “a musical in one act”: To Martin Hayman, Sounds, August 4, 1973.

  206 “I feel as though I’m on a tightrope”: To Mary Campbell, Associated Press, September 1972.

  206 “I’m not too sure when”: Fan Magazine, April 1973.

  206 “David’s retirement was first talked”: 1987 interview.

  206 “There was a time when what”: Quoted in Buckley, Strange Fascination, p. 149.

  207 “You start on this trail”: BBC radio interview, 1993.

  207 “In the end it was almost”: 1987 interview.

  208 “His manager decided just before”: To Peter Harry, RM, April 13, 1974.

  208 “various activities that have very little”: To C. S. Murray, NME, July 7, 1973.

  208 “The star was created”: To C. S. Murray, NME, August 11, 1973.

  209 “Maybe I’m not into rock’n’roll”: To C. S. Murray, NME, June 9, 1973.

  217 “I don’t know whether I want to be”: To C. S. Murray, NME, August 11, 1973.

  218 “It sometimes looked as if the originality”: Shrapnel, The Seventies, p. 84.

  218 “[Bowie’s] in show business”: To Tony Stewart, NME, March 9, 1974.

  220 “a composer, arranger, singer, dancer”: Press release.

  220 “David Bowie has taken his best shot”: To Rob Partridge, MM, January 12, 1974.

  221 “I honestly can’t remember Mick”: To Chris Charlesworth, MM, March 13, 1976.

  221 “I just gave up trying”: To Ben Fisher, Mojo, October 1997.

  228 “I’m an awful pessimist”: To C. S. Murray, NME, August 11, 1973.

  228 “After what I’ve seen of this world”: Circus, October 1973.

  228 “If I ever wrote about it”: Ibid.

  229 “Mrs Orwell refused”: Ben Edmonds, Circus, April 27, 1976.

  229 “Rejected applicants inevitably”: Spurling, The Girl from the Fiction Department, p. 151.

  233 “mix your own linguistic virus”: IT, August 31–September 13, 1967.

  234 “Cut up everything in sight”: IT, April 28–May 12, 1967.

  234 “My thought forms are already fragmented”: RS, February 1976.

  238 “a premeditated rewrite”: NME, February 2, 1974.

  239 “what was now happening”: Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, p. 174.

  240 “‘We are the dead,’ he said”: Ibid., p. 252.

  241 “black-haired, black-moustachio’d”: Ibid., pp. 18–19.

  241 “little sandy-haired woman”: Ibid., p. 19.

  242 “a hideous, grinding screech”: Ibid., p. 14.

  243 “You’re doing it to me, stop it”: To Robert Hilburn, MM, September 14, 1974.

  243 “I started fiddling around”: Buckley, Strange Fascination, p. 187.

  245 one rock journalist: Charles Shaar Murray (NME).

  246 “we used the Keypex”: To Ron Ross, Circus, December 1974.

  247 “conceptualises the vision”: Press release.

  247 “I wanted to make a film”: To Angus MacKinnon, NME, September 13, 1980.

  248 “my usual basket”: To Paul Du Noyer, Mojo, July 2002.

  248 “simplistic and murky”: Ken Emerson, RS, August 1, 1974.

  248 “Mick was silly”: To Cameron Crowe, Playboy, September 1976.

  249 “Lulu’s got this terrific voice”: Rock Magazine, June 1974.

  249 “I set out on a very successful crusade”: To Cameron Crowe, Playboy, September 1976.

  250 “White rock has lost its contact”: NME, February 22, 1975.

  250 “Any artist who will mean as much”: Circus, February 1975.

  251 “Every British musician has a hidden desire”: Ibid.

  251 “It’s only now that I’ve got the necessary”: To Robert Hilburn, MM, September 14, 1974.

  252 “the Pimpmobile Pyramid-Heel”: Wolfe, Mauve Gloves and Madmen, Clutter and Vine, pp. 206–7.

  252 “it was an attempt to turn”: To Paul Du Noyer, Mojo, July 2002.

  254 “He seems to be kicking and screaming”: NME, October 26, 1974.

  254 “the crossroads of multiple and confused”: Quoted in booklet of 2010 DVD.

  256 “a non-singer of the Lou Reed school”: quotes from Milwaukee Journal, October 14, 1974; New York Times, November 2, 1974; Boston Globe, November 15, 1974; Philadelphia Bulletin, November 25, 1974.

  256 “You’d give him something to eat”: To Peter Harry, RM, April 13, 1974.

  256 “almost ravaged, beyond belief”: Lisa Robinson, NME, December 28, 1974.

  256 “self-destruct time”: Gillman and Gillman, Alias David Bowie, p. 382.

  257 “I nearly threw myself”: To Al Rudis, Sounds, April 10, 1976.

  257 “moving very strangely”: Lisa Robinson, NME, December 14, 1976.

  265 “endless numb beat”: To Cameron Crowe, Playboy, September 1976.

  265 “It obviously threatened”: Quoted in Kaufman, American Culture in the 1970s, p. 133.

  267 “Really, I’m a one-track person”: To Robert Hilburn, MM, September 14, 1974.

  267 “Strong emotion”: Huxley, Brave New World Revisited, p. 76.

  267 “Hitler induced the German masses”: Quoted in Heller, Iron Fists, p. 14.

  267 “It could be argued”: Ibid.

  271 “one of the occult arts”: Brennan, Occult Reich, p. 32.

  274 “I never really knew what he was”: Peebles, The Lennon Tapes, p. 66.

  275 “I wouldn’t inflict fame”: To Moby, Mojo, July 2002.

  275 “some Stevie Wonder middle eight”: Peebles, The Lennon Tapes, p. 65.

  277 “There’s no gratification”: To C. S. Murray, NME, August 11, 1973.

  277 “psychic vampires”: Gillman and Gillman, Alias David Bowie, p. 399.

  278 “the definitive plastic soul”: To Cameron Crowe, Playboy, September 1976.

  278 “Basically, I haven’t liked a lot”: Ibid.

  279 “It wasn’t a matter of liking them”: Ibid.

  279 “I think he’s very much a 70s artist”: To Timothy Ferris, RS, November 9, 1972.

  280 “His frame was impossibly slight”: Tevis, The Man Who Fell to Earth.

  280 “poems from outer space”: Ibid.

  281 “very strange and different”: Burroughs, Burroughs Live 1960–1997, p. 421.

  281 “It required non-acting”: To Chris Charlesworth, MM, March 13, 1976.

  281 “unembodied” self: Laing, The Divided Self, p. 80.

  282 “I just wish Dave”: Quoted
in Pegg, The Complete David Bowie, p. 388.

  282 “I’ve had short flirtations”: To Cameron Crowe, Playboy, September 1976.

  283 “old vacuum-cleaner nose”: RM, June 14, 1975.

  283 “David has an extreme personality”: Gillman and Gillman, Alias David Bowie, p. 383.

  283 “I’d found a soulmate”: To Paul Du Noyer, Mojo, July 2002.

  283 “Give cocaine to a man”: Quoted in Durlacher, Agenda Cocaine, pp. 32–34.

  283 “A very Aryan, fascist-type”: To Timothy White, Crawdaddy, February 1978.

  283 “can be very charming”: Ibid.

  284 “dramatically erratic behaviour”: Ibid.

  284 “Everywhere I looked”: To Angus MacKinnon, NME, September 13, 1980.

  284 “pulled me off the settee”: NME, January 14, 1978.

  285 “partly autobiographical”: RM, August 2, 1975.

  285 “I’ve decided to write”: RS, February 1976.

  286 “All the references within the piece”: To David Cavanagh, Q, February 1997.

  290 “when I felt very much at peace”: To Robert Hilburn, MM, February 1976.

  290 “There were days of such psychological”: To Angus MacKinnon, NME, September 13, 1980.

  291 “He also asked to have”: To Timothy White, Crawdaddy, February 1978.

  291 “I’d been pretty godless”: Ibid.

  293 “the high mountain of fabrication”: Ibid.

  294 “That was recorded very much”: Buckley, Strange Fascination, p. 235.

  295 “has an original timbre”: James Roos, Miami Herald, November 18, 1972.

  296 “I really, honestly and truly”: RS, February 1976.

  297 “I have serious problems”: Quoted in Buckley, Strange Fascination, p. 234.

  297 “I was out of my mind totally”: To Angus MacKinnon, NME, September 13, 1980.

  297 “a miserable time to live through”: To David Cavanagh, Q, February 1997.

  297 “Station to Station is probably the first”: To Ben Edmonds, Circus, April 27, 1976.

  297 “This time I’m going to make some”: To Chris Charlesworth, MM, March 13, 1976.

  298 “I’m trying to get over”: Ibid.

  298 “a bunch of lights”: To Adrian Deevoy, Q, June 1989.

  299 “Two superstars of their time”: Press release.

  300 “I could have been Hitler in England”: To Cameron Crowe, Playboy, September 1976.

  301 “the best way to fight an evil force”: To Timothy White, Crawdaddy, February 1978.

  301 “did some good because”: US radio interview, 1978.

  301 “an idiot’s dream”: Ibid.

  303 “He’ll never make it”: To Tina Brown, Sunday Times Magazine, July 1975.

  303 “a cross between James Brown”: To Lisa Robinson, NME, October 9, 1976.

  305 “He was getting into his King”: To Mac Garry, ZigZag, March 1976.

  305 “totally riveted and fettered”: NME, April 2, 1977.

  306 “He was, in my opinion”: To Timothy White, Crawdaddy, February 1978.

  307 “People simply can’t cope”: To Allan Jones, MM, October 29, 1977.

  307 “David works very fast”: To Miles, NME, November 27, 1976.

  307 “fucks with the fabric of time”: Visconti, Bowie, Bolan and the Brooklyn Boy, p. 235.

  307 “I heard that it could change”: Buckley, Strange Fascination, p. 270.

  311 Bowie explained this song: BBC radio interview, 2000.

  312 “I think the twentieth century”: Ballard, Notes to Crash, p. 14.

  312 “to accept the perverse eroticism”: Ballard, Crash, p. 9.

  312 “hands down, the most repulsive”: Ballard, Notes to Crash, p. 12.

  313 “It could’ve been anybody”: To Michael Watts, MM, February 1978.

  313 “It was genuinely anguished”: Ibid.

  314 “most narrative”: Ibid.

  314 “this metallic, metronomic beat”: To Toby Goldstein, NME, December 24, 1977.

  317 “Music carries its own message”: NME, September 13, 1980.

  317 “To make him sound like a boy”: Buckley, Strange Fascination, p. 267.

  319 “no other instrument”: To Angus MacKinnon, NME, September 22, 1979.

  320 “I have to put myself”: To C. S. Murray, NME, November 12, 1977.

  320 “the twentieth century’s dystopia”: Conrad, Modern Times, Modern Places, p. 319.

  320 “unsettlingly foreign”: Large, Berlin, p. 466.

  321 “This fascist state”: Varon, Bringing the War Home, p. 39.

  322 “an ambiguous place”: To Jonathan Mantle, Vogue, September 1978.

  322 “Instead of having a lot”: To Miles, NME, November 27, 1976.

  322 “without vocals that you’d recognise”: To Chris Charlesworth, MM, March 13, 1976.

  324 “recognisable Bowie”: NME, October 16, 1976.

  324 “It’s still a very organic”: To Paul Du Noyer, Mojo, July 2002.

  327 “That rather camp”: RS, November 5, 1987.

  328 “To cause an art movement”: To Lisa Robinson, NME, March 6, 1976.

  328 “Punk was absolutely necessary”: To Jean Rook, Daily Express, February 14, 1979.

  329 “Germanic influences were plain”: Shrapnel, The Seventies, p. 85.

  330 “I wanted to give a phrase”: To Michael Watts, MM, February 1978.

  333 “very straight from the shoulder”: To Adrian Deevoy, Q, June 1989.

  333 “Bowie’s most moving performance”: NME, October 8, 1977.

  333 “People like watching people”: To Chris Charlesworth, MM, March 13, 1976.

  333 “three oscillating VCS3 drones”: Sheppard, On Some Faraway Beach, p. 256.

  335 “I still incorporate a lot”: To Michael Watts, MM, February 1978.

  337 “It was like a game”: Quoted in Sheppard, On Some Faraway Beach, p. 255.

  338 “restricted to impressionistic”: Ibid.

  339 “the Turks are shackled”: To Allan Jones, MM, October 29, 1977.

  340 “just a collection of stuff”: To C. S. Murray, NME, November 12, 1977.

  341 “instamatic lyric overflow”: NME, October 8, 1977.

  342 “mythic, cartoon-like”: Bracewell, Re-Make/Re-Model, p. 261.

  342 “I was just a hack painter”: To Allan Jones, MM, October 29, 1977.

  342 “I’m doing lots of sculptures”: To Russell Harty, TV interview, 1975.

  343 “ecstatic expressiveness”: Elger, Expressionism, p. 58.

  343 “everything is dead”: Quoted in Mitsch, Egon Schiele, pp. 49–50.

  343 “Mime and theatrical gesture”: Ibid., p. 28.

  343 “an uncompromising disregard”: Ibid., p. 25.

  344 “only rival”: To Tony Norman, RM, July 20, 1974.

  344 “it reminded us of our childhoods”: To Bob Hart, quoted in RM, July 20, 1974.

  344 “David will write the screenplay”: Ibid.

  345 “I hope it’s going to be out”: To Robin Smith, RM, April 16, 1977.

  347 “Friends remember him”: Steve Turner, Independent, 1991.

  347 “The film was a cack”: To Angus MacKinnon, NME, September 13, 1980.

  349 “taken some realist attitudes”: To Timothy White, Crawdaddy, February 1978.

  349 “The celebrated chameleon”: Ibid.

  349 “I get scared stiff”: MM, February 1978.

  350 “I think the only thing”: To Jonathan Mantle, Vogue, September 1978.

  351 “learning to be happy”: To Jean Rook, Daily Express, February 14, 1979.

  351 “cynical period”: Press conference, February 1979.

  353 “I took a straightforward safari”: US radio interview, 1978.

  353 “I would have thought”: To Angus MacKinnon, NME, September 13, 1980.

  356 “The one particular song”: To Philip Bradley, International Musician, June 1990.

  359 “What I do is, say”: To Angus MacKinnon, NME, September 13, 1980.

  362 “If I’m bor
ed”: To Robert Hilburn, MM, September 14, 1974.

  362 “a piece of self-plagiarism”: Jon Savage, MM, May 27, 1979; Angus MacKinnon, NME, May 26, 1979; Paul Yamada, New York Rocker, July 1979.

  365 “Having played it”: To Angus MacKinnon, NME, September 13, 1980.

  370 “I programmed a descending”: Visconti, Bowie, Bolan and the Brooklyn Boy, p. 283.

  370 “We’d go back”: Ibid., p. 286.

  373 “Those three particular lines”: To Angus MacKinnon, NME, September 13, 1980.

  373 “You have to accommodate”: To Timothy White, Musician, July 1990.

  374 “For me, it’s a story”: To Angus MacKinnon, NME, September 13, 1980.

  375 “I’ve always hated him so”: Meltzer, A Whore Just Like the Rest of Us, p. 218.

  375 “The next religion might come”: Friends, October 30, 1970.

  377 “the lyric is often glossed”: Pegg, The Complete David Bowie, p. 216.

  377 “quite proud about it”: Buckley, Strange Fascination, p. 331.

  377 “when he was young”: Christgau, Christgau’s Consumer Guide: Albums of the ’90s, p. 66.

  382 “I can’t write young”: To Angus MacKinnon, NME, September 13, 1980.

  383 “My problem was cocaine”: To Tricia Jones, i-D, May 1987.

  384 “The later paintings”: Miller, The Seventies Now, p. 219.

  384 “a grinding, dissonant”: NME, September 20, 1980.

  384 “Scary Monsters for me”: To Timothy White, Musician, July 1990.

  AFTERWORD

  390 “disintegrative effect”: Quoted in Mellor, The Sixties Art Scene in London, p. 32.

  393 “The cutting-edge ensemble”: Pegg, The Complete David Bowie, p. 480.

  395 “unbelievably complicated”: Quoted in ibid., p. 360.

  APPENDIX

  402 “He was probably aiming higher”: To Mark Paytress, RC, May 2000.

  406 “I borrowed someone else’s”: To Tony Horkins, International Musician, December 1991.

  409 “I’m not very sure of myself”: To C. S. Murray, NME, August 11, 1973.

  417 “It goes down very well”: MM, November 1966.

  418 “were either homosexual”: Quoted in Davenport-Hines, The Pursuit of Oblivion, p. 256.

  430 “in the style of a beat poet”: Cann, Any Day Now, p. 106.

  430 “like an unpolished recording”: Ibid.

  434 “I would have been doing stage musicals”: To David Cavanagh, Q, February 1997.

  436 “a true oddity”: Cann, Any Day Now, p. 106.