Do you think of yourself as Bowie or David Jones, the boy from South London?
Uh... Less and less as Bowie, Boughie, Booie.
HE LAUGHS
I don't even know how to pronounce it any more.
# Ch-ch-ch-changes
# Turn and face the strain
# Ch-ch-changes
# Don't want to be a richer man
# Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
# Turn and face the strain
# Ch-ch-changes
# Just going to have to be a different man
# Time may change me
# But I can't trace time... #
# O, for the wings, for the wings of a dove... #
My mother didn't realise what she was starting, but she would
always say that breakfast, "Oh, I could have been a singer, you know."
And then she'd sing, and there was this thing on radio,
Two-Way Family Favourites when and I was about six.
And every Sunday without fail, this thing by Ernest Lough was sung.
And my mother would, sing, "Oh, for the wings, for the wings of a dove..."
So that was, like,
one of my first influences I think as Ernest Lough.
# Lucille, won't you do your sister's will?
# Lucille... #
I wanted to be a white Little Richard at eight.
I remember getting so excited when they showed Little Richard on television.
It was just amazing to actually see him moving.
He'd just been a record to me before, you know?
MUSIC: Lucille by Little Richard
I saw him first in 1963, I think it was.
And the Rolling Stones were opening up for him,
and I'd never seen anything so rebellious in my life.
Some guy yells out...
- COCKNEY ACCENT: - Get your hair cut!
- And Mick says, "What, and look like you?" - LAUGHTER
So with the nucleus of some of his friends,
a 17-year-old David Jones has just founded the Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Long-Haired Men.
Well, here we are.
Long-haired men, you've got to have your hair, what,
nine inches long before you can join?
- Well, I think we passed that over now. - Have you? - Yes.
Now, exactly who's been cruel to you?
Well, I think we're all fairly tolerant,
but for the last two years we've had comments like "darling" and "can I carry your handbag?" thrown at us,
and I think it's just had to stop now.
- I mean, did you get this off the Rolling Stones? - Oh, no. Definitely not.
But did any of you have your hair growing long more than two years ago, say?
- Oh, yes. - Did you? Before the Rolling Stones ever did?
It takes a long time to get this length, you know.
But do you really think that many people are on your side is what I'm saying?
Oh, yes, quite a few. 1,000 teenagers over Britain.
'Ever since I was a teenager,
'I felt so adrift and so not part of everyone else.
'There were so many dark secrets about my family in the cupboard that
'it kind of made me feel very much on the outside of everything.
'It was my initial fascination with mime and expressing.
'Things with facial movements and body talk.
'Rather than articulating things.
'I mean, I'd done as much articulating as I felt was
'necessary with the actual songs.'
# Ground Control to Major Tom
# Take your protein pills and put your helmet on
# Ground Control to Major Tom
# Commencing countdown, engines on
# Check ignition, and may God's love be with you
# This is Ground Control to Major Tom
# You've really made the grade
# And the papers want to know whose shirts you wear
# Now it's time to leave the capsule if you dare
# This is Major Tom to Ground Control
# I'm stepping through the dark
# And I'm floating in the most peculiar way... #
'I wasn't that comfortable as a singer,
'but I knew that I could probably project a character or an emotion,
'or I could tell the story with my voice if I could find the right tenor for it.
'I was influenced on one part by Little Richard, on the other
'part by people like Tony Newley, Scott Walker, Elvis Presley.
'And I knew that I was none of those,
'so I thought the best thing for me to do was just, sort of,
'use different stylings for different songs.
'It seemed to make sense that that's also how I wrote,
'and it's how I did everything.
'It was a question of some rather mutant eclecticism going on.
'That's kind of what I did, and that's what I did well.
'And it's what I really enjoyed.
# Wake up you sleepyhead
# Put on some clothes, get out of bed
# Put another log on the fire for me
# I've made some breakfast and coffee
# Look out my window, what do I see?
# Crack in the sky and a hand reaching down to me
# All the nightmares came today
# And it looks as though they're here to stay
# What are we coming to?
# No room for me, no fun for you
# I think about a world to come
# Where the books were found by the golden ones
# Written in pain, written in awe
# By a puzzled man who questioned what we came here for
# All the strangers came today
# And it looks as though they're here to stay
# Oh, you pretty things
# Don't you know you're driving your mamas and papas insane?
# Oh, you pretty things
# Don't you know you're driving your mamas and papas insane?
# Let me say it again
# You've got to make way for the Homo Superior... #
'I'm not a guy that gets on stage and tells you how my day's just gone.
'Straight from the heart.
'I couldn't do that.
'I love artists who do do that and I admire them tremendously.
'I don't have that talent, and it's not a thing that interests me.
'I was one of that tiny bastion of Velvet Underground fans in London
'at the time, so I wrote Queen Bitch as an homage to Velvet Underground.'
MUSIC: Queen Bitch by David Bowie
# Well, I'm up on the 11th floor and I'm watching the cruisers below
# You know, my heart's in the basement
# My weekend's at an all-time low
# Well, he's down on the street and he's trying hard to pull sister Flo
# And she's hoping to score, well, I can't see her letting him go
# Walk out of her heart, walk out of her mind
# No, no, no, she's so swishy in her satin and tat
# And her frock coat and bibbity-bobbity hat
# Oh, God I could do better than that... #
'I think we were excited, when we went back into The Spiders, to
'do Starman, cos we kind of knew that what we were doing was,
'like, singularly different to anything else that was happening,
'so that was that kind of frisson, you know, that sense of anticipation
'that we were unleashing this thing on the world.
'All the bravado of being in your 20s.'
MUSIC: Starman by David Bowie
# Didn't know what time it was and the lights were low
# I leaned back on my radio
# Some cat was layin' down some get it on rock and roll, he said
# Then the loud sound did seem to fade
# Came back like a slow voice on a wave of phase
# That weren't no DJ, that was hazy cosmic jive
# There's a starman waiting in the sky
# He'd like to come and meet us but he thinks he'd blow our minds
# There's a starman waiting in the sky
# He told us not to blow it cos he knows it's all worthwhile
# He told me let the children lose it
# Let the children use it Let all the children boogie... #
A superstar of the beat age prepares to meet his public.
David Bowie spends two hours before a show caressing his body with paint.
Bowie is a skinny lad with a pasty complexion and ochre-dyed hair
in a Teddy Boys style of 20 years ago.
Yet with a dash of make-up, he's transforming himself into an
object that is worshipped by millions of girls.
Outside the Winter Gardens of Bournemouth, some of those fans
are arriving to pay homage to a man who's become the high priest of pop.
Every seat was sold months ago.
Some fans were even blessed with a glimpse of the master as
he scurried into the theatre.
Oh, no, I wanted to see him!
What are you so upset about?
I wanted to see him! They said he was coming round the back.
I've been waiting for ages to see him!
SHE CRIES
Why are you so upset?
- He's smashing! - I kissed him! - I kissed his hand! - I kissed his hand!
# Jean Genie lives on his back
# Jean Genie loves chimney stacks
# He's outrageous, screams and he bawls
# Jean Genie, let yourself go, whoa-oh... #
Meanwhile, the object of so much interest is trying on his kinky boots.
When I was a teenager,
I had it in my mind that I would be a creator of musicals.
I sincerely wanted to write musicals for the West End and Broadway, whatever.
I didn't see much further than that as a writer.
And I really had the idea in my head that people would do my songs.
And I was not a natural performer. I didn't feel at ease on stage ever.
CROWD SCREAMS
I had created this one character, Ziggy Stardust, that it seemed
that I would be the one that would play them,
because nobody else was doing my songs and the chances of
my actually getting a musical mounted were very slim.
And so I became Ziggy Stardust for that period.
And I felt really comfortable going on stage as somebody else.
And it seemed a rational decision to keep on doing that.
And so I got quite besotted with the idea of just creating character after character.
'He's also been smart enough to realise that in showbiz,
'the more outrageous you are, the more people will notice you.'
This is my life.
Really, you know, writing or performing, there's not much else I want.
It's the biggest kick I know.
I know of all the drugs, and you get a different kind of buzz off those,
but stages, there's something else. It's partaking of people.
I'm very much a character when I go on stage, I feel. I mean...
- Like an actor? - Yeah.
I believe in my part all the way down the line,
right the way down, but I do play it for all it's worth.
Because that's the way I do my stage thing.
That's part of what Bowie's supposedly all about. I'm an actor.
Oh, it's all right.
'Later he selects a satin psychedelic leotard.'
I tell you what was even funnier, though, was getting my band to put the clothes on.
DRUMS PLAY
These guys all came from Hull.
- NORTHERN ACCENT: - You know, we're going to play a rock and roll band. They like the songs and all that.
And I said, "Yeah, yeah, that's great.
- "Do you want to see what we're going to wear?" "Oh, yeah, right." - LAUGHTER
- NORTHERN ACCENT: - "No way.
"What bloody...? Right, I'm not putting that on."
I said, "No, believe me, it'll... You'll look great. It'll really suit you."
"Yeah, right." And so, I don't know how I did it,
but I managed to talk them into doing it.
A couple of nights later,
we'd done a couple of shows and all these girls were all over them.
SCREAMING
And suddenly the dressing room procedure was really different.
- "Right, who's got the blush?" - LAUGHTER
It was, "Hey, Trevor, have you finished with that mascara?
LAUGHTER
It was a phenomenal thing.
MUSIC: Ziggy Stardust by David Bowie
# Oooooh yeah
# Ah
# Ziggy played guitar, jamming good with Weird and Gilly
# And the Spiders from Mars
# Well, he played it left hand
# But he made it too far
# Became the special man, then we were Ziggy's band... #
Funnily enough, it was actually based on a real person.
There was an American...
rock singer in the late '50s, early '60s
called Vince Taylor.
He was out of his gourd.
Totally flipped. I mean, the guy was not playing with a full deck
at all.
And I remember very distinctly
him opening a map out on Charing Cross Road,
outside the Tube station, and putting it on the pavement,
and kneeling down with a magnifying glass.
And I got down there with him, and he was pointing out all the
sites where UFOs were going to be landing over the next few months.
And he had a firm conviction that there was
a very strong connection between himself, aliens and Jesus Christ.
Those were the three elements
that went into his make-up and drove him.
He eventually went to France and became a huge rock star over there.
And one night, he decided he'd had enough,
so he came out on stage in white robes and said that the whole thing
about rock had been a lie, that in fact he was Jesus Christ.
- LAUGHS: - And it was the end of Vince,
his career and everything else.
And it was that and his story which really became one of the
essential ingredients of Ziggy and his world view.
It was his complete otherness.
I'm terribly attracted to people like that, the OTHER people.
We were only together for 18 months.
The whole thing was over in 18 months.
The whole Ziggy Stardust thing.
And a good halfway through - nine, ten months into it -
I knew it was over already, and the last few months I was really,
like, treading water. I couldn't wait to finish.
I just knew that I was getting bored very quickly.
Bowie's announced he's retiring from live performances before,
so perhaps like Frank Sinatra,
he might make the occasional comeback.
And at the age of 26,
he's perhaps young enough to retire as often as he wants.
# Oh, yeah
# Whoohoo
# Hoo-hoo-hoo
# Now Ziggy played
# Guitar! #
I just wanted to move somewhere else.
There was a new kind of music I wanted to write,
a different kind of theatricality I wanted to bring into it.
It was great to let go of it, but I tend to grasshopper about.
- LAUGHS: - My attention span is very short.
CROWD CHEERS AND SCREAMS
# It's a god-awful small affair
# To the girl with the mousy hair
# But her mummy is yelling no
# And her daddy has told her to go
# But her friend is nowhere to be seen
# Now she walks through her sunken dream
# To the seat with the clearest view
# And she's hooked to the silver screen
# But the film is a saddening bore
# For she's lived it ten times or more
# She could spit in the eyes of fools
# As they ask her to focus on
# Sailors fighting in the dance hall
# Oh, man, look at those cavemen go
# It's the freakiest show
# Take a look at the lawman
# Beating up the wrong guy
# Oh, man, wonder if he'll ever know
# He's in the best selling show
# Is there life on Mars? #
Ziggy was just an experiment.
It was an exercise for me.
And he really grew sort of out of proportion, I suppose.
Got much bigger than I thought Ziggy was going to be.
I didn't ever see Ziggy as big.
Really, it was his own personality being unable to cope with the
circumstances he found himself in, which is being...
..an almighty, profit-like superstar rocker...
..who found he didn't know what to do with it once he got it.
Which is... It's an archetype, really.
It's the definitive rock and roll star.
It often happens.
And I was just trying to document it as such.
Yes, I had a kind of a...
a kind of a strange...
psychosomatic death wish thing.
I think.
But that's because I was so lost in Ziggy. I think. Again.
It was all that schizophrenia.
CHEERING
# In the year of the scavenger The season of the bitch
# Sashay on the boardwalk Scurry to the ditch
# Just another future song Lonely little kitsch
- # There's gonna be sorrow - Try and wake up tomorrow
- # Will they come? - I'll keep a friend serene
- # Will they come? - Oh, baby, come unto me
- # Will they come? - Well, she's come, been and gone
# Come out of the garden, baby
# You'll catch your death in the fog
# Young girl They call them the Diamond Dogs
# Yeah, young girl
# They call them the Diamond Dogs
# Hey, yeah
# They call them the Diamond Dogs. #
It did look as if it was the ghost
of Ziggy Stardust you were tying up.
Yes, exactly, that's what happened. It was...
..trying to get rid of the damn character.
- HE CHUCKLES - It was kind of following me around.
And hopefully...
You see, I'm very... I...
I'm very happy with Ziggy.
I think he was a very successful character,
and I think I played him very well.
But I...
- I... I'm glad I'm me now. - HE LAUGHS
I'm glad I'm me. My God, I can trot 'em out.
- # Givin' it - Givin' it
- # Givin' it - Keepin' it right. #
That's...that's cool. That's cool.
Next one. Got to do it this way to get it...
One, two, three, four.
- # Get you when you're down - Nobody, nobody
# Do it again, get off
# Sometimes... #
OK, that's good.
Right, OK, and the last section.
# Gimme, gimme Yeah
- # Gimme - Doin' it
- # Taken with me - Sometimes
- # Right - Lovin' it, doin' it. #
# All night
# She wants the young American
# Young American Young American
# He was the young American
- # All right - All right
# But she wants the young American. #
THUD!
So what's happening...?
BOWIE SPEAKS IN GERMAN
So...?
What's happened since?
Um, since Ziggy? Good Lord! Um...
Well, the last time you saw me, or were with me,
it was in Los Angeles, wasn't it?
One of the my...
One of the worst periods, I think, in my life, I think.
I got into a lot of emotional and spiritual trouble there.
And so I decided to split and discover new ways of...
..relating to the music business, per se.
I wasn't sure exactly what I was in it for any more.
Was there a clash between that sort of materialism,
the need to be a rock star, successful, if you like?
Yes, I think, very much so.
And as I really didn't want to be one myself,
I was living more and more in the style of one of my characters,
who wanted terrific success, because they're all Messiah figures,
most of them,
either light or dark shadowings.
Um...
And so because I knew...
I really felt that the material aspect was something
that had to be done in Los Angeles, because it's driven into you.
It's the food of Los Angeles.
Hollywood, rather, not Los Angeles.
Unfair on Los Angeles.
And so I just packed up everything one day
and I moved back to Europe again.
# I
# I wish I could swim
# Like dolphins
# Like dolphins can swim
# Though, nothing
# Will keep us together
# We can beat them
# Forever and ever
# We can be heroes
# Just for one day
# I
# I will be king
# And you will be queen
# Though nothing
# Will keep us together
# We can be us
# Forever and ever
# Or we can be heroes
# Just for one day... #
Is there a danger that by following your instinct,
your aesthetic instincts if you like, your artistic instinct...
- Yeah. - ..that you will jeopardise that, you know,
the money and the good life and all that?
- No shit, Sherlock. - HE LAUGHS
Yes, I think...
Yes, I think I've rather sort of hit that one on the head at the moment.
Um...
And it's quite a relief, really.
I feel a lot more...
free in what I do.
I just needed...
I just needed a positive decision to only do what I want to do and
not do things for the sake of what either David Bowie or
whoever I was playing last, The Thin White Duke or something,
was expected to do.
- # Peace on earth - Come they told me
- # Pa-rum-pum-pum-pum - Can it be?
- # Years from now - A new born king to see
- # Perhaps we'll see - Pa-rum-pum-pum-pum
- # Our finest gifts we bring - See the day
- # Pa-rum-pum-pum-pum - Of glory
- # See the day - To lay before the king
- # When men of good will - Ra-pum-pum-pum, ra-pum-pum-pum
# Live in peace Live in peace again
- # So to honour Him - Peace on earth
# Pa-rum-pum-pum-pum
- # Can it be? - When we come
# Every child must be made aware
# Every child must be made to care
# Care enough for his fellow man
# To give all the love that he can. #
Now, into this ever-changing world of current affairs,
we welcome a chameleon of show business.
Yet another David Bowie.
Is this the real one this time?
Well, um, I think so, yes.
A lot of people looking at some of those roles that you've played,
- I think would have been very shocked and found it very outrageous. - Yeah.
And also there's this tremendous tendency to think
of rock stars as, or pop stars generally,
- as being a bit thick. - Yeah.
Obviously, there's, I presume, a lot more to you than that.
Did it worry you that people have that kind of image?
- No, I'm very thick. - HE LAUGHS
- Are you? - Yes, I became a rock star.
What is your rank?
Lieutenant.
Well, Lieutenant...
..I'm the head of a regiment, of sorts -
the gigolos.
Yes, your lieutenant told me.
Lieutenant, there's one thing I don't like.
Poor fantasy in speech.
It lacks charm.
And you don't seem to lack anything.
- Do you lack anything, David Bowie? - Isn't she lovely? - She's marvellous.
- I wish I'd met her... - It's fantastic. - ..a long time ago.
I'm picking up the line she addressed to you in the film,
do you feel you lack anything,
or have you got everything you want now?
Yes, a train ticket to Penge.
I've got some friends out there and I promised I'd go and see them
this week, but I haven't had the time to get down there yet.
Are you going to give up music now and concentrate on acting?
Is this a new whole direction?
I'd like to expand my activities, as they say.
No, I enjoy writing very much.
Writing. Just music or all sorts of writing?
Um...
Funnily enough, I am sort of studiously trying to write
a book of short stories
based on things that I've done.
But writing music, generally.
Performance on stage, I think I've decided really cut it down to
once every two years because I find it boring after the first ten shows.
It starts to become repetitious - every night the same thing.
- So will there be more acting, more films? - Yes, there will.
- I'm heading towards directing as well. - Are you?
- Yeah, very much. - That's a final hope, is it?
No, I want to be a good painter again, is my really big dream.
And now Bowie in New York.
The play in which rock star David Bowie has scored
a remarkable triumph on Broadway
is called The Elephant Man.
It's the story set in late 19th century England of John Merrick,
played by Bowie, a grotesquely deformed man who suffered
a miserable existence as a pathetic circus attraction until
he was befriended by a brilliant young surgeon.
Bowie's first appearance as a straight actor met with
almost universal praise from the New York critics,
and I know, to my cost, that they can be slightly unpleasant at times,
and there were long lines at the box office.
- WITH SPEECH IMPEDIMENT: - I have a home.
This is m-m-my...
home.
This...
is my home.
I have a home.
I have.
For as long as I like.
I have a sort of eclectic thing about freaks and isolationists
and alienated people, sort of.
And I kind of gather information on people like that, mentally anyway.
# Do you remember a guy that's been
# In such an early song
# I've heard a rumour from Ground Control
# Oh, no
# Don't say it's true
# They got a message from the Action Man
# I'm happy
# Hope you're happy, too
# I've loved All I've needed, love
# Sordid details following
# The shrieking of nothing is killing me
# Just pictures of Jap girls in synthesis
# And I ain't got no money and I ain't got no hair
# But I'm hoping to kick
# But the planet is glowing. #
Were you surprised at the huge success of the single in England?
Uh... Frankly, yes, I was.
Do you think your video had a lot to do with it?
I don't know. I really don't know.
I would tend to believe...
To be honest about it, I suppose that Major Tom was a sort of...
There's a comfortable feeling with him, being such
a sort of an old figure of mine.
I mean, he goes back to '68, '69, whatever it was.
Um...
I guess that sort of a lot of people still have some kind of
empathy with him, because he became a little sort of bouncy hero.
I just wanted to sort of bring him up to date a little bit
and put him in a Victorian nursery rhyme kind of atmosphere.
Even though it's not Victorian,
it has that queasiness as some of those...
# Ring a ring o' roses... #
"This is about the plague and we're all going to drop down dead, boom."
..kind of thing about it,
which is what I did with the piece.
# Ashes to ashes Funk to funky
# We know Major Tom's a junkie
# Strung out in heaven's high
# Hitting an all-time low. #
I guess there's a kind of a voice in there somewhere.
I think songs like Wild Is The Wind
is probably as near to a real voice.
# Love me, love me, love me,
# Love me, say you do
# Let me fly away with you
# For our love is like the wind
# And wild is the wind
# Wild is the wind
# You
# Touch me
# I hear the sound of mandolins
# You
# Kiss me
# Oh, with your kiss, my life begins. #
Claridge's, that most exclusive of hotels in London's West End,
at lunchtime today.
Times are hard in the record industry,
but EMI are celebrating.
Against serious opposition and for very serious money,
they've just signed a real superstar.
Ladies and gentlemen, Mr David Bowie.
- Can I sit down here? - Yeah, sure.
No, I can't.
- I'll sit here, then. - LAUGHTER
Um... About two days ago,
EMI Records phoned me up in Australia and said,
would I like to take a 25-hour flight back,
come and sit in a room with 75 journalists?
Over the last year, I've made a couple of movies
and I've completed an album and a single called Let's Dance,
and tomorrow tickets go on sale in the UK -
and in the next few days in the rest of Europe -
for concert performances in London...
No other pop performer except perhaps Jagger
could create quite this interest
for the media of Europe or pull off the event with quite such style.
Particularly if they'd just flown in from Australia.
# Put on your red shoes and dance the blues
# Let's dance
# To the song they're playing on the radio
# Let's sway
# While colour lights up your face. #
The new single, Let's Dance,
shows Bowie changing again
to New York black funk styles.
It's his first release for EMI after 12 years with another
record company, RCA,
against whom Bowie now makes the remarkable accusation
that they tried to dictate his style.
EMI don't give lavish receptions like this very often.
They won't say how much they paid for Bowie,
but rumours range from £10 million to £17 million
for a five-year contract.
Reportedly so, yes. I'm overwhelmed that I've...
- Is that anywhere near accurate? - It's absolutely nowhere near accurate.
- Can you give us a more accurate figure? - Of course not!
He treated his press conference more like a cool actor than
a cool pop star,
almost like some future Dirk Bogarde in the making.
Thank you very much and good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
But then he has got two feature films opening
in the next few months, including
Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence, the first film in seven years
from Japan's controversial director Nagisa Oshima.
I always look for characters who have
either an emotional or a physical limp.
I find that they are, for me, not being a...
I don't really see my future in acting to
a greater extent than my involvement now,
so I really like to have characters
that I can at least play around with.
He asked me my name and my rank, and I told him.
Then Lieutenant Ito asked me, "Is that true?"
I replied, "Of course it is, I'm with the British Army."
Is it worth coming to cope with the pressures of Cannes to sell
a movie like Merry Christmas?
I think that a cultural co-production like Merry Christmas
deserves every pound of help that it can get
because otherwise it could be relegated to
a position of an art movie.
Uh...
HE SPEAKS FRENCH
'It's awful, really unbelievably diabolical.'
I do it very rarely.
This is like the second time I've done it in God knows how many years,
but I appreciate the value of doing it.
There's a time to be public with things.
I mean, I don't know.
I've always been a pretty private person,
but I think that I'm changing somewhat.
I think it is now important for me as an artist to...
It's slowly dawned on me that part of an artist's
responsibility is to make himself open to the people that are
trying to understand his work.
I'm still not at ease with the situation,
but it's...it's making sense now.
Live Aid, the biggest musical event ever,
is still going on at Wembley Stadium in London.
It is being beamed to more than 100 countries around the world
with about 1.5 billion people watching.
The aim is to raise £10 million for the starving in Africa.
# Calling out around the world
# Are you ready for a brand-new beat?
# Summer's here and the time is right
BOTH: # For dancing in the street
- # Dancing in Chicago - Dancing in the street
- # Down in New Orleans - Dancing in the street
- # In New York City - Dancing in the street
# All we need is music
- # Sweet music - Sweet music
- # There'll be music everywhere - Everywhere
# They'll be swinging, swaying records playing
# Dancing in the street
# Whoa
# It doesn't matter what you wear
# Just as long as you are there
# So come on
# Every guy, grab a girl
# Everywhere around the world
# There'll be dancing
- # Dancing in the street - Dancing in the street. #
One down and two to go.
The next film out of the Goldcrest trap is Absolute Beginners,
which isn't due to be released until Easter.
# I absolutely love you
# But we're absolute beginners
# With eyes completely open
# But nervous all the same. #
Your him, aren't you? You're the goblin king!
What's the word on David?
'Every age group really has a whole thing about David.
'And he himself is a very normal, well grounded,
'straightforward person that is absolutely professional.'
And if he says, "You do."
- You do. - Do what?
INDISTINCT SPEECH
# I never sailed on a sea
# I would not challenge a giant
# I could not take on the Church
- # Time will crawl - Till the 21st century lose
# I know a government man
# He was as blind as the moon
# He saw the sun in the night
# He took a top-gun pilot and he... #
David Bowie was back on stage last night with a new band, Tin Machine.
Unlike previous performances, this saw Bowie as himself,
just another member of the band.
CROWD SCREAMS
Do you look back on the old sort of Bowie stuff and compare this?
He just looks at the old Bowie!
HE LAUGHS
And now music from a band formed only three years ago.
The second album and a new single - You Belong In Rock N' Roll.
Keep an eye on their promising young vocalist.
LAUGHTER Tin Machine.
CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
# You belong in rock n' roll
# So do I
# I love how she moves me
# It makes me feel all right, all right, all right, all right. #
'I screw up in major ways.
'I'd much prefer a magnificent disaster than a mediocre success.'
# I'm a-hurt, I'm a-hurt, I'm a hurting. #
'I'd be a fool not to be aware of what my contribution
'has been to music over the years, you know,
'I kind of hear traces of it here, there and everywhere.'
I only write for myself.
I don't take much regard for my audience, whoever they might be.
# Spaceboy
# You're sleepy now
# Your silhouette
# Is so stationary
# You're released but your custody calls
# And I want to be free
# Don't you want to be free?
# Do you like girls or boys?
# It's confusing these days
# But moon dust will cover you, cover you
# This chaos is killing me. #
Neil asked me if he could mix it,
because he thought it was a big single,
so I said, "Yeah, I'd love one that the radio played."
So he went away and mixed it, and now the radio are playing it.
He knows these things.
He has these secret ears.
# Ground to Major Bye-bye, Tom. #
We cut up the words of Space Odyssey.
And he phoned up when we were in the studio and he said,
"Oh, how's it going?" I said, "Well, there's not a second verse,
"so we cut up the words of Space Odyssey."
And there was a long pause on the phone and he said,
"Sounds like I'd better come into the studio, I think."
And I thought, "Oh, my God, we're in trouble."
And then he came in, and he laughed, and he really liked it.
# This chaos is killing me. #
Me, I'm a very...pretty fulfilled artist.
I like what I've done on the majority of occasions
and I'm in exactly the place where I want to be at the moment, so that...
that for me is a good thing.
# Little wonder, then Little wonder
# You little wonder Little wonder, you. #
If I just do things that I really get off on,
that I think are exciting,
I can't guarantee that everybody
will like it. That's just ridiculous. That's a fantasy.
But you can guarantee that somebody is going to like it.
# So far away. #
Would you be happy with just being remembered as a rock star or a god?
Um...
Two things strike me about that.
One, I'd be happy to be remembered.
And secondly, by anybody.
HE LAUGHS
That's a bonus.
I must say, I'm very complacent, but frankly, it doesn't bother me.
I'm very glad that I got this life, and it's a gift,
and for that I am thankful enough, frankly.
# Oh, my
# Naked eyes
# I should've kept you
# Should've tried
# Should've been a wiser
# Kind of guy
# I loved you. #
On a personal level, you don't do drugs any more.
- No, absolutely not. - And you don't drink. - I don't drink either, no.
- Not even a glass of wine? - No.
- It would kill me if I started again. - What do you mean it would kill you?
I'm an alcoholic,
so it would be the kiss of death for me to start drinking again.
And...
My relationships with my friends, my family,
everybody around me are so good, and have been for so many years now,
I wouldn't do anything to destroy that again. You know?
It's very hard to have relationships
when you're doing drugs and drinking.
For me personally, anyway.
And you become closed off, unreceptive, insensitive,
all the dreadful things
that you've heard every other pop singer ever say.
And I was very lucky that I found my way out of that.
It's been good for me.
I've reassessed my life any number of times.
It is so exciting.
The crowd are rising up.
It is the moment we have all been waiting for,
The Thin White Duke returns to Glastonbury.
The last time he played here was 1971.
He is on stage now, let's go and see him. It's David Bowie.
I'd just written this one the first time I played Glastonbury, 1971.
Oh, Glastonbury!
# Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
# Turn and face the strange
# Woohoo, changes
# Do you want to have to be a better man?
# Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
# Turn and face the strange
# Woohoo, changes
# I just wanted to be a better man
# Time may change me
# I can't trace time. #
I never became who I should've been
until maybe 12, 15 years ago.
I spent an awful lot of my life,
as I think most people in the so-called entertainment industry,
actually looking for myself, you know,
and understanding what it was that I...
..what I existed for, what was it that really made me happy in life,
and who exactly I was,
and who were the parts of myself I was trying to hide from a lot.
You know, it's like exposing yourself.
And I think a lot of us are, one, dysfunctional in show business...
Show business!
..pretty dysfunctional and, two,
in huge senses of denial about who we are
and where we exist in the world.
Because some kind of traumatism often goes on in our childhood,
so I think that it makes us crave some kind of strange affection,
you know? It's sort of...
Often, you'll find that the person who craves
a lot of affection actually isn't terribly good at giving it.
# They said you took a big trip
# Said you moved away
# It happened all so quietly
# So they say
# I should've took a picture
# Something I could keep
# I'd buy a little frame
# Something cheap
# For you
# Everyone says hi. #
Are you a New Age father now? Are you...
doing nappy changing? Come on.
Uh, no, I'm ridiculously Victorian.
I'm absolutely hopeless at that kind of thing.
I've got a huge admiration for guys who can get in there, like that.
I just can't. Well, I mean, I didn't...
My wife didn't let me, which was great.
LAUGHTER
She said, "Oh, get out of here!"
And she was like pinning and wrapping things up and,
you know, I knew there was some kind of...
something in there was being prepared,
and at the end of it all, my little daughter came out, "Da-da-da!"
It was great.
But I'm good at saying,
"This is a book, and we're going to look at this," you know?
- "Come to this museum." - Yeah.
I'm kind of fairly good like that, I think.
# Waiting for something
# Looking for someone
# Is there no reason?
# Have I stared too long
# Whoa-ho-ho
# You say you'll leave me. #
- You've got your old Tony Visconti on it. - Yeah. - Producing it.
- And he is old as well. - Is he? - Yeah.
Why did you decide to go back with him?
He did lots of your early things, didn't he?
Yeah. We stopped arguing, you know, and it was like...
It worked out that we started getting on as friends and all that,
and we'd already done a lot of really good stuff together,
so it was worth a chance, you know,
of going back in and seeing what else we could do between us.
It was...
I'm really pleased we did. It was a good move. It's a good album.
# Streets, damp and warm
# Empty, smell metal
# Weeds between buildings
# Pictures on my hard drive
# But I'm the luckiest guy
# Not the loneliest guy. #
I had this poetic, romantic, kind of juvenile idea that I would be dead
by 30, you know, cos that's what all artists think.
"I'll be dead by 30," you know, "I'm going to get TB and die."
Aubrey Beardsley, and all that. But you don't, you know.
You get past it, and then suddenly you're 30, and you're 40...
And then you're 50, and 57, and all that,
and it's a new land, you know?
- Sure. - I'm a pioneer. Me and my kind.
- That's right. - "Me and my kind."
Just sort of scraping the edge of what this thing is about being
a rock and roller at 57.
But my revenge is all these bands that are below us,
they've got to do this.
So they kind of say,
"Yeah, they're really old," but secretly they're thinking,
"I'd better watch how he does it cos I'm going to get there."
# All the errors
# Left unlearned
# Oh
# But I'm the luckiest guy
# Not the loneliest guy
# In the world
# Not me. #
He's back.
40 years after Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders from Mars
and ten years since his last single,
David Bowie has released a new song.
It marks the singer's 66th birthday and an album is to follow.
Our arts editor, Will Gompertz, has been listening.
Without fanfare or flamboyance...
..David Bowie simply posted his first new track for a decade
on the internet.
It is a sorrowful, nostalgic ballad
that sees a 66-year-old rock star
reminiscing about his time spent in Berlin in the 1970s.
Fans were both surprised and relieved by the track's appearance.
Some had thought that Bowie had quietly retired,
others speculated that poor health had incapacitated him.
I think it's a wonderful song. I think it's heartfelt.
I think it's poignant.
But the other thing I love is that we know
that he's had times of ill health recently,
and I detect a little bit of kind of fragility in the voice,
even though it's croony, which is a really endearing thing.
# Look up here
# I'm in heaven
# I've got scars that can't be seen. #
Tonight at ten, the life and music of David Bowie,
the rock legend, who's died at the age of 69.
His career spanned half a century,
leaving an indelible mark on popular culture around the world.
# Something happened on the day he died
# The spirit rose a metre and stepped aside
# Somebody else took his place and bravely cried
# I'm a blackstar
# I can't answer why
# I'm a blackstar
# Just go with me I'm not a film star
# I'm-a-take you home
# I'm a blackstar
# Take your passport and shoes
# I'm not a pop star
# And your sedatives, boo I'm a blackstar
# Your flash in the pan
# I'm not a Marvel star
# I'm the Great I Am
# I'm a blackstar. #
He released his final album, Blackstar,
last week, on his 69th birthday.
True to form, it was innovative, surprising and,
in anticipating his own death, visionary.
David Bowie was a truly great artist
to the very end.
# Rebel rebel You've torn your dress
# Rebel rebel Your face is a mess
# Rebel rebel How could they know?
# Hot tramp, I love you so
# You've got your mother in a whirl
# She's not sure if you're a boy or a girl
# Hey, baby Your hair's all right
# Hey, baby Let's go out tonight
# Rebel rebel How could they know?
# Hot tramp, I love you so! #