0:00:03 > 0:00:06This programme contains some strong language.
0:00:07 > 0:00:10- Where are we going? - We're going down this way.
0:00:31 > 0:00:34Can you get me a Coca-Cola for Mr Bowie, please?
0:00:34 > 0:00:37'I'm only using rock 'n' roll as a medium.
0:00:37 > 0:00:39'I don't think it had been really voiced before then.
0:00:39 > 0:00:42'I wanted to be the instigator of new ideas.
0:00:42 > 0:00:46'I wanted to turn people on to new things and new perspectives.
0:00:46 > 0:00:49'I always wanted to be that sort of catalystic kind of thing.'
0:00:55 > 0:00:58I mean, the image you have has got almost nothing to do
0:00:58 > 0:00:59with your real life.
0:00:59 > 0:01:01'It depends on which image you're talking about.
0:01:01 > 0:01:04'I've seen so many because, of course, there will be so many.'
0:01:04 > 0:01:06It's like looking at an actor's films
0:01:06 > 0:01:09and taking clippings from the films and saying, "Here he is," you know.
0:01:09 > 0:01:12Well, that's where you're different from most rock stars.
0:01:12 > 0:01:14Well, I'm not a rock star, you see. You've just said it.
0:01:14 > 0:01:16- I'm not in rock and roll. - That's nice.
0:01:16 > 0:01:17MUSIC: "Fashion" by David Bowie
0:01:17 > 0:01:18# Fashion!
0:01:18 > 0:01:19# Turn to the left
0:01:19 > 0:01:20# Fashion!
0:01:20 > 0:01:22# Turn to the right
0:01:22 > 0:01:24# Oooh, fashion!
0:01:26 > 0:01:29# We are the goon squad And we're coming to town
0:01:29 > 0:01:30# Beep-beep. #
0:01:30 > 0:01:33I've always found that I collect. I am a collector.
0:01:35 > 0:01:39And I've always just seemed to collect personalities, ideas.
0:01:39 > 0:01:43# Let's dance
0:01:43 > 0:01:46# Put on your red shoes and dance the blues... #
0:01:46 > 0:01:49I'm a storyteller and I'm a storywriter
0:01:49 > 0:01:53and I decided that I preferred to enact a lot of the material
0:01:53 > 0:01:55I was writing, rather than perform it as myself.
0:02:00 > 0:02:04# There's a starman
0:02:04 > 0:02:06# Waiting in the sky
0:02:13 > 0:02:15# There's a starman
0:02:16 > 0:02:18# Waiting in the sky. #
0:02:18 > 0:02:20I think I'm a fairly good social observer,
0:02:20 > 0:02:25and I think that I encapsulate areas maybe every year or so.
0:02:25 > 0:02:27I'm trying to stamp that down somewhere,
0:02:27 > 0:02:29the quintessence of that year.
0:02:29 > 0:02:32MUSIC: "Oh You Pretty Things" by David Bowie
0:02:32 > 0:02:34# Let me make it plain
0:02:34 > 0:02:37# Gotta make way For the Homo Superior. #
0:02:47 > 0:02:51'I wanted to make a mark and I didn't quite know how to do it,
0:02:51 > 0:02:54'and it took me all the '60s to try everything that I could think of
0:02:54 > 0:02:57'in terms of theatre and arts and music,
0:02:57 > 0:03:00'to find out what exactly it was I wanted to do anyway.
0:03:04 > 0:03:06'I was learning about how to play rhythm and blues,
0:03:06 > 0:03:10'learning how to write, finding all these, everything that I read,
0:03:10 > 0:03:13'every film that I saw, any bit of theatre,
0:03:13 > 0:03:16'everything went into my mind as being an influence.'
0:03:16 > 0:03:17'But at the time, I thought,
0:03:17 > 0:03:19' "God, that's going in my memory bank."
0:03:22 > 0:03:25'But just about the end of the '60s, it started to come together for me
0:03:25 > 0:03:28'that there was a way of expressing, not only musically,
0:03:28 > 0:03:29'but visually what one can do.'
0:03:29 > 0:03:31# Well
0:03:32 > 0:03:34# She takes me up
0:03:34 > 0:03:36# She takes me down
0:03:36 > 0:03:39# She takes me down, down, down
0:03:39 > 0:03:41# Anywhere you want me to be. #
0:03:53 > 0:03:55You ready?
0:03:55 > 0:03:57Yeah.
0:03:57 > 0:03:59MUSIC: "Andy Warhol" by David Bowie
0:04:03 > 0:04:05# Like to take a cement fix
0:04:05 > 0:04:07# Be a standing cinema
0:04:08 > 0:04:10# Dress my friends up just for show
0:04:10 > 0:04:13# See them as they really are. #
0:04:13 > 0:04:15Warhol, scene one, take one.
0:04:17 > 0:04:20# Put a peephole in my brain
0:04:20 > 0:04:22# Two new pence to have a go
0:04:23 > 0:04:25# I'd like to be a gallery
0:04:25 > 0:04:29# Put you all inside my show. #
0:04:31 > 0:04:34How come your camera doesn't make any noise?
0:04:34 > 0:04:37'This guy was as well-known as the work that he did.'
0:04:37 > 0:04:42'In fact, probably more people knew the name and the look of Andy Warhol
0:04:42 > 0:04:44'than actually knew what it was he did.'
0:04:44 > 0:04:45Oh, it's so glamorous.
0:04:47 > 0:04:52Bowie admired Warhol, but also felt competitive with him, in some way.
0:04:52 > 0:04:59I think he understood that Warhol's work had waned in the prior years.
0:05:00 > 0:05:03Bowie felt on Warhol's level,
0:05:03 > 0:05:06wanted to be taken as his peer, and rightly so.
0:05:08 > 0:05:11'I did write a song about him, and that rather linked me to him,
0:05:11 > 0:05:12'in a certain way.'
0:05:12 > 0:05:15# Andy Warhol looks a scream
0:05:15 > 0:05:18# Hang him on my wall, oh-oh, oh-oh
0:05:18 > 0:05:20# Andy Warhol, silver screen
0:05:20 > 0:05:22# Can't tell them apart at all
0:05:22 > 0:05:26# Oh-oh, oh-oh, oh. #
0:05:26 > 0:05:30'He hated it. He loathed it. He told people afterwards,
0:05:30 > 0:05:32' "That's the worst thing I've ever heard."
0:05:33 > 0:05:36'I was upset by that, you know.
0:05:36 > 0:05:38'I thought it was kind of a flattering portrait of him.
0:05:38 > 0:05:41'I thought it was a very contemporary picture
0:05:41 > 0:05:42'of Andy at the time.'
0:05:42 > 0:05:44If you'd like to take the camera back,
0:05:45 > 0:05:48I'd prefer to do something.
0:05:48 > 0:05:49You going to do something, still? No.
0:05:51 > 0:05:54I do feel that Bowie felt disappointed
0:05:54 > 0:05:56in not being embraced by Warhol,
0:05:56 > 0:06:00and certainly dramatised his own sense of disease
0:06:00 > 0:06:03by doing his hilarious disembowelling mime
0:06:03 > 0:06:07at the end of the video that recorded this ill encounter.
0:06:14 > 0:06:15'Oh, that's right.
0:06:19 > 0:06:20'Did he really?
0:06:23 > 0:06:25'Oh, that's nice.'
0:06:31 > 0:06:34With Andy Warhol from Hunky Dory, you've got the sense
0:06:34 > 0:06:38that Bowie's one of the first people who's able to essay
0:06:38 > 0:06:42the experience of stardom, wanting to be a star,
0:06:42 > 0:06:45imagining what it's like to be a star.
0:06:45 > 0:06:48And even the cover picture has a sense that he knows
0:06:48 > 0:06:52that he's starting to turn himself into what, if you're being romantic,
0:06:52 > 0:06:55you'd call an icon, and if you're being horribly cynical
0:06:55 > 0:06:57and 21st-century, you'd call a brand.
0:06:57 > 0:06:58But I'd rather not use that word
0:06:58 > 0:07:01because it's a huge disservice to what we're talking about.
0:07:01 > 0:07:04# Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
0:07:04 > 0:07:06# Turn and face the stranger
0:07:06 > 0:07:08# Ch-ch-changes
0:07:08 > 0:07:11# Don't want to have to be A richer man
0:07:11 > 0:07:13# Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes
0:07:13 > 0:07:15# Turn and face the stranger
0:07:15 > 0:07:17# Ch-ch-changes
0:07:17 > 0:07:20# Just wanted to be a better man
0:07:20 > 0:07:22# Time may change me
0:07:22 > 0:07:26# But I can't trace time. #
0:07:26 > 0:07:28I got a call from David, he called me directly,
0:07:28 > 0:07:30and he said, "Can you come over to the house?"
0:07:30 > 0:07:34And I sat there with him, and he took out this battered old
0:07:34 > 0:07:3912-string guitar and said, "I'm going to play you some songs."
0:07:39 > 0:07:42And he played me these songs one after the other.
0:07:47 > 0:07:49# It's a God-awful small affair
0:07:51 > 0:07:54# To the girl with the mousy hair
0:07:55 > 0:07:57# But her mummy is yelling "No"
0:07:59 > 0:08:01# And her daddy has told her to go
0:08:03 > 0:08:07# But her friend is nowhere To be seen
0:08:07 > 0:08:10# Now she walks through her sunken dream... #
0:08:10 > 0:08:13"Life On Mars?", from Hunky Dory,
0:08:13 > 0:08:16was certainly the stand-out song for me,
0:08:16 > 0:08:18but it was a challenge in certain areas,
0:08:18 > 0:08:20because of some of the chord structure,
0:08:20 > 0:08:22because he would lead you down the garden path with quite
0:08:22 > 0:08:25a bog-standard chord structure, and then suddenly go AWOL.
0:08:25 > 0:08:27Now I've got to try and remember this,
0:08:27 > 0:08:29because it is 40 years since I've played it, but...
0:08:29 > 0:08:32HE PLAYS "Life On Mars?"
0:08:45 > 0:08:47# But her friend is nowhere To be seen
0:08:48 > 0:08:51# Now she walks through Her sunken dream
0:08:52 > 0:08:55# To the seat with The clearest view... #
0:08:59 > 0:09:03Now this is a classic example of where he throws in a chord
0:09:03 > 0:09:04that you wouldn't expect.
0:09:04 > 0:09:05Normally after...
0:09:05 > 0:09:07HE PLAYS SEQUENCE
0:09:07 > 0:09:10You would expect it to go back there, but he doesn't. He goes...
0:09:10 > 0:09:12HE PLAYS SEQUENCE
0:09:12 > 0:09:14But the thing that makes it really clever
0:09:14 > 0:09:16is he put an E flat in the bass,
0:09:16 > 0:09:21which just gives it a bass part that you can start to move on.
0:09:21 > 0:09:23Really clever, so you've got...
0:09:23 > 0:09:25HE PLAYS SEQUENCE
0:09:26 > 0:09:28# But the film is a saddening bore
0:09:29 > 0:09:32# For she's lived it ten times or more. #
0:09:39 > 0:09:41Now, after that chord, you would expect it to go to...
0:09:41 > 0:09:42HE PLAYS CHORD
0:09:42 > 0:09:44But he doesn't.
0:09:44 > 0:09:47HE PLAYS SEQUENCE
0:09:47 > 0:09:51I mean, nobody... Only David would do something like that.
0:09:51 > 0:09:55HE PLAYS SEQUENCE
0:10:05 > 0:10:08It's a piano player's joy. In fact, I must go home and learn it.
0:10:08 > 0:10:12# Take a look at the lawman
0:10:12 > 0:10:14# Beating up the wrong guy
0:10:14 > 0:10:17# Oh, man! Wonder if he'll ever know
0:10:20 > 0:10:23# He's in the best-selling show
0:10:23 > 0:10:29# Is there life on Mars? #
0:10:32 > 0:10:35"Life On Mars?" is sort of magic realism, really,
0:10:35 > 0:10:36if you listen to it,
0:10:36 > 0:10:38that you recognise it as a song about Britain.
0:10:38 > 0:10:40And there are references in it which anyone
0:10:40 > 0:10:43who grew up in suburbia would understand.
0:10:43 > 0:10:46Very mundane, and yet it's magical.
0:10:46 > 0:10:48You know, he's seen the cosmos in the bus stop.
0:10:48 > 0:10:51# It's on America's tortured brow
0:10:52 > 0:10:55# That Mickey Mouse Has grown up a cow
0:10:56 > 0:10:58# Now the workers have Struck for fame
0:11:00 > 0:11:03# Cos Lennon's on sale again. #
0:11:03 > 0:11:06The vocals are performances, they are real, they are live,
0:11:06 > 0:11:10and I think that's one of the reasons we're still talking about them today,
0:11:10 > 0:11:14because they do resonate with people. Unlike the manufactured
0:11:14 > 0:11:19and thrown-together vocals that are so prevalent today, his are real.
0:11:33 > 0:11:37# I'm up on the eleventh floor And I'm watching the cruisers below
0:11:40 > 0:11:45# Well, I'm down on the street And he's trying hard to... #
0:11:45 > 0:11:47Sorry.
0:11:48 > 0:11:51Although most of Hunky Dory is not a rock record,
0:11:51 > 0:11:53there are stirrings of the Bowie to come.
0:11:53 > 0:11:55When you listen to Queen Bitch, it swings.
0:11:55 > 0:11:57It has raunch to it, you know.
0:11:57 > 0:12:00That record shakes its hips very convincingly.
0:12:02 > 0:12:03# Well, it could have been me
0:12:03 > 0:12:06# Yes, it could have been me
0:12:06 > 0:12:07# Why didn't I say?
0:12:07 > 0:12:09# Why didn't I say?
0:12:11 > 0:12:15# She's so swishy In her satin and tat
0:12:15 > 0:12:19# In her frock coat And bipperty-bopperty hat
0:12:19 > 0:12:22# Oh, God, I could do better than that. #
0:12:22 > 0:12:25'I think I was getting nearer to what I wanted to do,
0:12:25 > 0:12:27'which is to create this alternative world,
0:12:27 > 0:12:29'and Hunky Dory was the first,
0:12:29 > 0:12:32'really stepping off this planet and going somewhere else.'
0:12:35 > 0:12:38So, we'd finished Hunky Dory, and a couple of weeks later
0:12:38 > 0:12:41I ran into David walking along the corridor of Trident Studios
0:12:41 > 0:12:44and he comes up to me and he says, "We're going to record a new album,"
0:12:44 > 0:12:46"But you're not going to like it."
0:12:46 > 0:12:49I said, "Why?" and he said, "Well, this is much more rock and roll."
0:12:51 > 0:12:52# I'm an alligator
0:12:54 > 0:12:56# I'm a mama-papa coming for you. #
0:13:08 > 0:13:12Bowie's always been brilliant at finding the right collaborators.
0:13:12 > 0:13:15He had the extraordinary Mick Ronson,
0:13:15 > 0:13:21who could strike amazing guitar hero poses and fill the hall with riffs
0:13:22 > 0:13:26in such a way that Bowie shared the stage with Ronson
0:13:26 > 0:13:30in a way that he's never shared a stage with anyone else.
0:13:34 > 0:13:38# Freak out in a moon-age daydream, Oh, yeah! #
0:13:43 > 0:13:45'When I first heard him play, I thought,
0:13:45 > 0:13:49' "That's my Jeff Beck, he is fantastic, this kid is great."
0:13:49 > 0:13:52'And so I sort of hoodwinked him into working with me.'
0:13:55 > 0:13:58I forget how it goes, but, I mean, that's basically...
0:14:05 > 0:14:06He is good at stealing.
0:14:06 > 0:14:09You've only got to look at Ziggy, really.
0:14:09 > 0:14:11I mean, there is a lot of Lou Reed in there,
0:14:11 > 0:14:15a lot of Iggy Pop in there, you know. A lot of all sorts
0:14:15 > 0:14:18of influences that he has got in there, you know,
0:14:18 > 0:14:20so he would steal little bits.
0:14:20 > 0:14:22# Oh, don't lean on me, man
0:14:22 > 0:14:24# Cos you can't afford the ticket
0:14:24 > 0:14:26# I'm back on Suffragette City
0:14:26 > 0:14:29# Oh, don't lean on me, man
0:14:29 > 0:14:31# Cos you can't afford to check it
0:14:31 > 0:14:33# I'm back on Suffragette City
0:14:33 > 0:14:35# Is out of sight. #
0:14:37 > 0:14:41'It just seemed like a perfectly natural thing for me at the time,
0:14:41 > 0:14:44'to put together all these odds and ends of art and culture
0:14:44 > 0:14:46'that I really adored.
0:14:46 > 0:14:49'It was just creating something thoroughly artificial,
0:14:49 > 0:14:53'but something that worked in the confines of rock and roll.'
0:14:53 > 0:14:55# There's only room for one And here she comes
0:14:55 > 0:14:56# Here she comes... #
0:14:58 > 0:15:03I suppose the whole thing that made Ziggy as popular as it was-stroke-is,
0:15:03 > 0:15:06was that it was a good rock album.
0:15:06 > 0:15:09Nothing extraordinary, in my opinion,
0:15:09 > 0:15:12but a good rock album, and then the image on top of it,
0:15:12 > 0:15:15which was really honed to perfection by David,
0:15:15 > 0:15:17and people grabbed hold of it.
0:15:20 > 0:15:23What Ziggy Stardust does is it projects him as a rock star.
0:15:23 > 0:15:27He sings about the imagined experience of being a rock star,
0:15:27 > 0:15:29and in doing that, becomes a rock star.
0:15:29 > 0:15:31And there is a story about his wife Angie, in the front row,
0:15:31 > 0:15:33screaming at him as if he was a rock star,
0:15:33 > 0:15:35despite the fact that two men and a dog were there.
0:15:37 > 0:15:41What happens, then, really, is that the world fulfils his fantasy.
0:15:41 > 0:15:43It aligns itself with what he wants to be.
0:15:43 > 0:15:46Which is what I think psychologists call "self-actualisation".
0:15:46 > 0:15:47Not many people can do it but he did.
0:15:50 > 0:15:51# Suffragette! #
0:15:51 > 0:15:54I was sitting next to this guy who was living it,
0:15:54 > 0:16:01he was already being it on a daily basis,
0:16:01 > 0:16:06and it's funny, but he would eat breakfast as a superstar.
0:16:06 > 0:16:07It was like, "This guy means it."
0:16:12 > 0:16:14# Ziggy played guitar
0:16:15 > 0:16:18# Jamming good with Weird and Gilly
0:16:18 > 0:16:20# And the spiders from Mars
0:16:22 > 0:16:25# He played it left-hand
0:16:25 > 0:16:27# But made it too far... #
0:16:27 > 0:16:30'I'd found my character.
0:16:30 > 0:16:33'One man against the world. It really reverberated in my mind.
0:16:33 > 0:16:37'That's something that I really, kind of, honed in on.'
0:16:37 > 0:16:43# ..Screwed up eyes And screwed down hairdo
0:16:43 > 0:16:45# Like some cat from Japan
0:16:46 > 0:16:48# He could kill 'em by smiling... #
0:16:48 > 0:16:52'Ziggy was this kind of mythological priest figure.
0:16:52 > 0:16:55'And I only say that in retrospect because I didn't quite know
0:16:55 > 0:16:59'what he was then, but it does occur to me now
0:16:59 > 0:17:03'that the androgyny of some of the tribal priests throughout history
0:17:03 > 0:17:05'have been transvestite in nature.
0:17:05 > 0:17:08'I only know this because I read Camille Paglia on the subject.'
0:17:11 > 0:17:15Ziggy Stardust is, to me, a kind of colossus that marks
0:17:15 > 0:17:18a tremendous transition between the 1960s and the 1970s.
0:17:19 > 0:17:21# So we bitched about his fans
0:17:21 > 0:17:23# And should we crush his sweet hands? #
0:17:25 > 0:17:31The 1970s were a dark era, where sexual promiscuity for its own sake
0:17:31 > 0:17:37was pursued in a way that had never been so universal
0:17:37 > 0:17:40since the Roman Empire.
0:17:40 > 0:17:45Sex without consequence, anonymous sex, pick-ups in dark clubs.
0:17:45 > 0:17:51So Ziggy Stardust, when he appeared, was a kind of prefiguration,
0:17:51 > 0:17:54almost like the Book of Revelations,
0:17:54 > 0:17:58a hallucination of an apocalypse about to occur.
0:18:01 > 0:18:04# Making love with his ego
0:18:07 > 0:18:11# Ziggy sucked up into his mind
0:18:13 > 0:18:16# Like a leper messiah
0:18:18 > 0:18:21# When the kids had killed the man
0:18:21 > 0:18:24# I had to break up the band. #
0:18:27 > 0:18:31What made Ziggy different, and Bowie different, at that point,
0:18:31 > 0:18:37was that he turned himself into an idol that people could worship.
0:18:37 > 0:18:41Nobody had actually, in pop music, ever done that before.
0:18:41 > 0:18:44It was the province of Hollywood.
0:18:45 > 0:18:50# There's a starman Waiting in the sky
0:18:50 > 0:18:54# He'd like to come and meet us But he thinks he'd blow our minds
0:18:54 > 0:18:58# There's a starman Waiting in the sky
0:18:58 > 0:19:01# He's told us not to blow it
0:19:01 > 0:19:04# Cos he knows it's all worthwhile
0:19:04 > 0:19:06# He told me Let the children lose it
0:19:06 > 0:19:08# Let the children use it
0:19:08 > 0:19:10# Let all the children boogie. #
0:19:12 > 0:19:17His management would distribute posters of Bowie at concerts,
0:19:17 > 0:19:20so that the fans could pick them up and go home
0:19:20 > 0:19:26and put them on the walls, and it was that kind of attention
0:19:26 > 0:19:29to detail in thinking about the whole process of stardom
0:19:29 > 0:19:32that singled him out from people that had gone before.
0:19:36 > 0:19:41I think David was calculating in a lot of things that he did.
0:19:41 > 0:19:43He understood how to manipulate his image,
0:19:43 > 0:19:46in that he didn't make himself too available.
0:19:48 > 0:19:50He just gave them a little bit, and they'd go,
0:19:50 > 0:19:51"Oh, we want more of David Bowie."
0:19:51 > 0:19:53You know, that sort of thing.
0:19:53 > 0:19:55And I used to always wonder about that.
0:19:55 > 0:19:57I was like, "Why don't you just give them it all?"
0:19:57 > 0:19:59And he was like, "No, I've just got to give them that.
0:19:59 > 0:20:02"And then they'll come back for more, and then just give them that."
0:20:02 > 0:20:03And it worked.
0:20:23 > 0:20:26CROWD CHANT: Bowie! Bowie!
0:21:11 > 0:21:12'At that particular time,
0:21:12 > 0:21:16'I was chopping and changing really quite drastically.
0:21:16 > 0:21:19'The music that I was listening to was definitely the soul music
0:21:19 > 0:21:23'that was really, really big in the clubs in America
0:21:23 > 0:21:24'at that particular time.
0:21:28 > 0:21:31'So I kind of tried to do my own version of that kind of music,
0:21:31 > 0:21:33'which was the basis of the Young Americans album.
0:21:40 > 0:21:41'I'd become soul man.'
0:21:44 > 0:21:47When David really decided he wanted to be a soul man,
0:21:47 > 0:21:50he said to me, "So, how shall we do it?
0:21:50 > 0:21:51"Where shall we go?"
0:21:51 > 0:21:55And, you know, to get the people, the singers, the band and all that.
0:21:55 > 0:21:59And I said we should go to New York. To Harlem and go to the Apollo.
0:21:59 > 0:22:01So he was like, "OK."
0:22:01 > 0:22:03So we went backstage and he met everyone.
0:22:06 > 0:22:07I didn't know who David Bowie was,
0:22:07 > 0:22:10but I did know this was the whitest man I've ever seen.
0:22:10 > 0:22:13I'm not talking about white like pink.
0:22:13 > 0:22:15I'm talking about translucent white.
0:22:15 > 0:22:17And then he had orange hair.
0:22:17 > 0:22:22I'm not talking about your momma's orange,
0:22:22 > 0:22:26I'm talking about an orange, orange!
0:22:26 > 0:22:29And he was about 98lbs. I'm talking about thin, thin.
0:22:29 > 0:22:30I mean, he was freaky.
0:22:30 > 0:22:33At one point I told him - and you'll have to excuse my language -
0:22:33 > 0:22:35"You look like shit, man. You need some food.
0:22:35 > 0:22:37"You need to come to my house."
0:22:39 > 0:22:42Come forward. Yeah, that's great.
0:22:42 > 0:22:43'Carlos had been able to introduce me
0:22:43 > 0:22:46'to a lot of fantastic new musicians,
0:22:46 > 0:22:48'one of whom was Luther Vandross, of course.'
0:22:51 > 0:22:54So you have this amazing collaboration between Bowie,
0:22:54 > 0:22:57and soon-to-be one of the greatest soul singers of all time,
0:22:57 > 0:22:59Luther Vandross,
0:22:59 > 0:23:02along with all the other background singers who would sing with Luther.
0:23:06 > 0:23:09# Taking it all the right way
0:23:09 > 0:23:12# Keeping it in the back
0:23:12 > 0:23:15# Taking it all the right way
0:23:15 > 0:23:17# Never no turning back
0:23:17 > 0:23:19# Never need, no Never no turning back
0:23:24 > 0:23:26# Taking it all the right way
0:23:26 > 0:23:29# Keeping it in the back
0:23:29 > 0:23:32# Taking it all the right way
0:23:32 > 0:23:34# Never no turning back
0:23:34 > 0:23:37# Never need, no Never no turning back. #
0:23:37 > 0:23:41Right, from the Young Americans album, was a difficult song
0:23:41 > 0:23:44but Luther put it all together for him.
0:23:45 > 0:23:46We had...
0:23:46 > 0:23:47# Taking it all the right way
0:23:47 > 0:23:49# Keeping it all in the back
0:23:49 > 0:23:51# Taking it all the right way
0:23:51 > 0:23:54# Never no turning back Never need no... #
0:23:54 > 0:23:57And then that section comes in.
0:23:57 > 0:24:02# Wishing, wishing, sometime Doing it, up there, nobody
0:24:02 > 0:24:05# Nobody doing it, getting up. #
0:24:05 > 0:24:07That was so hard.
0:24:07 > 0:24:09# Time
0:24:09 > 0:24:10# Doing it
0:24:10 > 0:24:11# Giving it
0:24:11 > 0:24:12# Keeping it back. #
0:24:12 > 0:24:15Right. That's cool, that's cool.
0:24:15 > 0:24:19David had, like, a puzzle.
0:24:19 > 0:24:21Just the last line.
0:24:21 > 0:24:22He brought this paper to us and said,
0:24:22 > 0:24:24"This is how I want you to sing this."
0:24:24 > 0:24:26Oh, sorry, I wasn't with you.
0:24:26 > 0:24:29It wasn't a straight "just sing it linearly and melodically".
0:24:29 > 0:24:34Oh, I see, you count from... Yeah. I thought you were doing an intro.
0:24:34 > 0:24:35Right. One, two...
0:24:35 > 0:24:40It was "I want it to jump in here, and I want you to jump out there,
0:24:40 > 0:24:42"and jump back in here."
0:24:42 > 0:24:43# Keeping it back. #
0:24:43 > 0:24:46Right, that's fine. OK, so we've got that. That one's all right.
0:24:46 > 0:24:50That, too, was the first time I was singing anything like that.
0:24:50 > 0:24:52In my life.
0:24:52 > 0:24:56But it was brilliant, because he knew exactly what he wanted.
0:24:56 > 0:24:58Right, OK, and the last section.
0:25:01 > 0:25:04# Gimme, gimme, yeah. #
0:25:05 > 0:25:06Oh, Lord, it was too much!
0:25:08 > 0:25:11It was like, "Man, I'll be glad when we finish with this song."
0:25:11 > 0:25:16- # Wishing that sometimes - Sometimes
0:25:16 > 0:25:20- # Doing it, doing it right, till - Doing it
0:25:20 > 0:25:22- # One time- One time. #
0:25:22 > 0:25:24'There was no point in doing a straightforward take
0:25:24 > 0:25:27'on American soul music, because that's been done already,
0:25:27 > 0:25:29'so I just wanted to put this spin on it.'
0:25:33 > 0:25:35'Eventually, of course, when the album came out,
0:25:35 > 0:25:37'it was very well-received,
0:25:37 > 0:25:40'and Young Americans became a very big album for me.
0:25:40 > 0:25:42'I mean, I really advanced myself.
0:25:42 > 0:25:45'I was tumbling over myself with ideas.'
0:25:48 > 0:25:50People see you as a very skilful performer,
0:25:50 > 0:25:54who changes from time to time from one thing to another.
0:25:54 > 0:25:58Yeah. I glit from one thing to another, a lot.
0:25:58 > 0:25:59"Glit"?
0:25:59 > 0:26:02Mm-hmm. It's like "flit", but it's the '70s version.
0:26:02 > 0:26:04One letter later.
0:26:05 > 0:26:08To be on Dick Cavett meant you had arrived.
0:26:08 > 0:26:11And what's fascinating about that is he's not really playing
0:26:11 > 0:26:14by the Dick Cavett rules, if there are any,
0:26:14 > 0:26:16in the sense that one watches it and it's like,
0:26:16 > 0:26:19"Do you want the whole of America to think you're a complete nutcase?"
0:26:19 > 0:26:22"Out of your mind on cocaine?" And he clearly did.
0:26:22 > 0:26:24And it was to the benefit of his career.
0:26:24 > 0:26:26It rendered him fascinating.
0:26:26 > 0:26:31Is the offstage Bowie likely to surprise people?
0:26:31 > 0:26:33I've had the weirdest reactions
0:26:33 > 0:26:35from people who know that you're going to be on.
0:26:35 > 0:26:38Some say they'd be scared to sit and talk to you.
0:26:38 > 0:26:41Some people said you'd bite my neck.
0:26:42 > 0:26:44A very peculiar kind of thing.
0:26:44 > 0:26:48It's what you want, really. What do you think I'm like?
0:26:48 > 0:26:50To me you seem like a -
0:26:50 > 0:26:53I hope this doesn't insult you - a working actor.
0:26:54 > 0:26:56That's right, that's very good.
0:26:56 > 0:26:58I mean... What are you drawing?
0:27:00 > 0:27:02It's therapeutic.
0:27:02 > 0:27:05David, he was a character.
0:27:05 > 0:27:08I knew he was, excuse my language, I knew he was fucked up.
0:27:09 > 0:27:12But you know, he was good, he was cool, he got through it.
0:27:15 > 0:27:18# Pulls her down behind the bridge
0:27:18 > 0:27:20# He lays her down, she frowns
0:27:20 > 0:27:23# Gee, my life's a funny thing
0:27:23 > 0:27:26# Am I still too young?
0:27:26 > 0:27:28# He takes her hand and there
0:27:28 > 0:27:31# She takes his ring, takes his babies
0:27:31 > 0:27:34# Takes him minutes, takes her nowhere
0:27:34 > 0:27:37# Heaven knows, she'd have taken anything
0:27:37 > 0:27:41# All night
0:27:41 > 0:27:43# All night, she wants a young American
0:27:43 > 0:27:48# Young American, young American She wants a young American
0:27:48 > 0:27:50# All right. #
0:27:51 > 0:27:56In terms of the Young American stuff, it was a chance that he grabbed
0:27:56 > 0:27:59to be able to do something he had wanted to do since he was 12.
0:27:59 > 0:28:05He may have thought, "I won't have a 40-something, 50-year-old career,"
0:28:05 > 0:28:09and he may have thought, "I'm going to get this in while I can."
0:28:17 > 0:28:20Carlos had a riff that he'd had in his head for some time
0:28:20 > 0:28:25which I put to a standard called Footstompin' by The Flares.
0:28:25 > 0:28:27# Everybody, young and old
0:28:27 > 0:28:29# Learns how to rock and roll
0:28:29 > 0:28:31# Listen to something new
0:28:31 > 0:28:34# Everybody sure can do it
0:28:34 > 0:28:36# Footstompin', footstompin'. #
0:28:36 > 0:28:39David always liked that little line as I was playing it with...
0:28:39 > 0:28:42PLAYS "FAME" RIFF
0:28:42 > 0:28:45He liked that but he hated the song later on.
0:28:45 > 0:28:47So I'm called back into the studio.
0:28:47 > 0:28:48After we finished Young Americans
0:28:48 > 0:28:51he called me down to Electric Lady Studio
0:28:51 > 0:28:57and I get there and he had cut the song up into a more blues format,
0:28:57 > 0:29:00what we called the one-four-five-four format.
0:29:00 > 0:29:04And he had cut it up but the only thing he had kept was...
0:29:05 > 0:29:10PLAYS "FAME" RIFF
0:29:12 > 0:29:13I heard that and I was like,
0:29:13 > 0:29:15"OK, we're going to do something with that,"
0:29:15 > 0:29:18and I started laying down ideas and laying down ideas.
0:29:18 > 0:29:21I'm going to play the first thing that we did and how we layered it
0:29:21 > 0:29:23so you can hear what happens.
0:29:23 > 0:29:26PLAYS "FAME" RIFF
0:29:33 > 0:29:36First part, add a little bass.
0:29:46 > 0:29:48Doesn't that sound like Fame?
0:29:50 > 0:29:53David comes in, he goes, "Oh, I hear this line."
0:30:04 > 0:30:07What happened is that John Lennon came to the session.
0:30:07 > 0:30:10We sort of said, "Let's take that riff and write something over it."
0:30:10 > 0:30:11It was Carlos' riff.
0:30:15 > 0:30:16Fame.
0:30:18 > 0:30:24John was playing and he kept on coming up with, "Ame! Ame!"
0:30:24 > 0:30:28and I put an F in front of it and that was it, really.
0:30:29 > 0:30:33# Fame makes a man take things over
0:30:34 > 0:30:39# Fame lets him loose, hard to swallow
0:30:39 > 0:30:43# Fame puts you there Where things are hollow
0:30:44 > 0:30:47# Fame
0:30:49 > 0:30:52# Fame, not your brain, it's just the flame
0:30:52 > 0:30:56# That burns your change to keep you insane, sane. #
0:30:56 > 0:30:59David wasn't trying to be a soul singer.
0:31:01 > 0:31:07But as far as being taken seriously, he wanted to be taken seriously
0:31:07 > 0:31:09but he wasn't trying to be a pretender.
0:31:09 > 0:31:12MUSIC: "A Natural Woman" by Aretha Franklin
0:31:12 > 0:31:15# Looking out on the morning rain
0:31:17 > 0:31:20# I used to feel so uninspired. #
0:31:23 > 0:31:26It was surreal because
0:31:26 > 0:31:32it was getting close to the point where we were casting the movie.
0:31:32 > 0:31:36I knew there was something I had to get that was totally different.
0:31:38 > 0:31:44And suddenly this programme came on and by chance I saw it.
0:31:44 > 0:31:46There's a fly floating around in my milk.
0:31:46 > 0:31:51He's a foreign body in it, you see, and he's getting a lot of milk.
0:31:51 > 0:31:53That's kind of how I feel.
0:31:53 > 0:31:59# You make me feel like a natural woman. #
0:31:59 > 0:32:03He wasn't being over-careful or worried about losing an image.
0:32:03 > 0:32:05Maybe that was the image.
0:32:05 > 0:32:09And almost from that moment,
0:32:09 > 0:32:13I couldn't believe it because I thought, "This is the man."
0:32:22 > 0:32:25VOICEOVER: Nothing you have seen or heard about David Bowie
0:32:25 > 0:32:29will prepare you for the impact of his first dramatic performance
0:32:29 > 0:32:31in The Man Who Fell To Earth.
0:32:33 > 0:32:36This is another dimension of David Bowie.
0:32:36 > 0:32:39One of the few true originals of our time.
0:32:41 > 0:32:43David calculated all of this.
0:32:43 > 0:32:48I think he said, "Yeah, I'm Ziggy. No, I'm not Ziggy. I'm soul man.
0:32:48 > 0:32:51"Now I was a soul man, now maybe an actor."
0:32:51 > 0:32:54Yes, I think that he calculated all of that.
0:32:54 > 0:32:59VOICEOVER: The Man Who Fell To Earth is a powerful love story.
0:32:59 > 0:33:03A cosmic mystery. A spectacular fantasy.
0:33:03 > 0:33:05A shocking, mind-stretching experience.
0:33:07 > 0:33:09The film was the first thing I'd been given
0:33:09 > 0:33:12where I didn't have to play a rock 'n' roll star for a start.
0:33:12 > 0:33:14I wasn't required to sing.
0:33:14 > 0:33:18I wanted it to be considered as a serious sort of attempt at acting.
0:33:19 > 0:33:23The early scenes where we're together in the hotel room,
0:33:23 > 0:33:28his skin just reflects the light so beautifully.
0:33:28 > 0:33:31He does look like he's from another planet.
0:33:31 > 0:33:32Oh, I'm just visiting.
0:33:32 > 0:33:35Oh, a traveller?
0:33:35 > 0:33:39'As to how close it was to him, pretty close.
0:33:39 > 0:33:41'You know there wasn't a lot of changes to him.'
0:33:41 > 0:33:46That was the colour of his hair. They didn't change his hair.
0:33:46 > 0:33:47He just said, "Be yourself!"
0:33:47 > 0:33:49HE LAUGHS
0:33:49 > 0:33:53I think Nick realised I had some serious problems at the time
0:33:53 > 0:33:54and just thought, "He's perfect.
0:33:54 > 0:33:57"Just put him in, just change his clothes,
0:33:57 > 0:34:00"just put him in as he is and let him just walk through it," and I did.
0:34:02 > 0:34:06All I could do as far as his performances were concerned
0:34:06 > 0:34:11was stop myself from trying to influence him.
0:34:13 > 0:34:16And some days my face ached through not being able to use it.
0:34:16 > 0:34:19Everything had to be absolutely expressionless.
0:34:19 > 0:34:21Three months of being totally "the iceman cometh".
0:34:21 > 0:34:25You don't know? How could you? You're simple.
0:34:25 > 0:34:30He might think he's being expressionless, but he really isn't.
0:34:30 > 0:34:34His body language, everything is telling me something
0:34:34 > 0:34:37when I'm working opposite him.
0:34:38 > 0:34:41You won't find anyone else like me, you know.
0:34:41 > 0:34:44'The way he blinks his eyes, the way he looks away,
0:34:44 > 0:34:47'the way he moves his hand tells me something.'
0:34:47 > 0:34:52So he's wrong when he's saying he's expressionless.
0:34:52 > 0:34:54He's really not.
0:34:56 > 0:35:00The actual alien was more that vulnerable part
0:35:00 > 0:35:04when he wasn't Mr Newton.
0:35:04 > 0:35:07When Candy Clarke found him taking the stuff out of his eye,
0:35:07 > 0:35:10and she's freaked out and he was so freaked out that she saw him
0:35:10 > 0:35:13because he was trying to hide it so well.
0:35:13 > 0:35:19And it just seemed like something about him in real life to me.
0:35:20 > 0:35:23SHE SCREAMS
0:35:29 > 0:35:31It had a certain truth in,
0:35:31 > 0:35:35he made the mistake of telling her his secret.
0:35:37 > 0:35:41Of course, in that final sequence, it can't be the same,
0:35:41 > 0:35:45it'll never be the same again, you know,
0:35:45 > 0:35:46which was terribly sad.
0:35:49 > 0:35:53You've just finished making the film called The Man Who Came To Earth.
0:35:53 > 0:35:57- Fell To Earth. - Fell To Earth, I beg your pardon.
0:35:57 > 0:36:00It's not an easy film to explain to people who haven't seen it.
0:36:00 > 0:36:02It's very, very sad. Very romantic.
0:36:02 > 0:36:06It brought a lump to my throat watching it.
0:36:06 > 0:36:09And it's been a gas working on it.
0:36:09 > 0:36:13David, we're coming towards the end of our all-too-brief conversation.
0:36:13 > 0:36:15Oh, that's a shame.
0:36:16 > 0:36:20I think what we might do is end with a bit of music.
0:36:21 > 0:36:25I gather that, at your end, you have some music with you.
0:36:25 > 0:36:27The song is called The Shape Of Things To Come.
0:36:27 > 0:36:30- No, it isn't. - No, of course it isn't.
0:36:30 > 0:36:32- We're having a preview of The Shape Of Things to Come.- Ah.
0:36:32 > 0:36:34- The song is called Golden Tears. - Years.
0:36:34 > 0:36:37Mr David Bowie, we'll come back to you after we've seen some.
0:36:37 > 0:36:40You did get it wrong. It's Years. Years.
0:36:40 > 0:36:43Years. Why don't you introduce it from that end?
0:36:44 > 0:36:48This is David Bowie singing Golden Years,
0:36:48 > 0:36:51from his forthcoming album Station To Station.
0:36:51 > 0:36:54# Golden years
0:36:54 > 0:36:56# Gold, whop, whop, whop
0:36:59 > 0:37:01# Golden years
0:37:01 > 0:37:03# Gold, whop, whop, whop
0:37:03 > 0:37:07# Don't let me hear you say life's taking you nowhere
0:37:07 > 0:37:09# Angel
0:37:09 > 0:37:12# Come, get up my baby
0:37:12 > 0:37:14# Look at that sky, life's begun
0:37:14 > 0:37:18# Nights are warm and the days are young
0:37:18 > 0:37:20# Come, get up my baby
0:37:20 > 0:37:23# There's my baby lost that's all
0:37:23 > 0:37:25# Once I'm begging you save her little soul
0:37:25 > 0:37:30# Golden years, gold, whop, whop, whop. #
0:37:30 > 0:37:32It was kind of a very weird time
0:37:32 > 0:37:38and it was LA and it was the '70s and it was coke
0:37:38 > 0:37:42and it was weird people hanging around and people who didn't speak
0:37:42 > 0:37:45and just whistled and stuff like that.
0:37:45 > 0:37:47"You know, man, heavy."
0:37:47 > 0:37:50It was like being on another planet, yeah.
0:37:50 > 0:37:55# Run for the shadows, run for the shadows in these golden years. #
0:37:57 > 0:38:01I was probably fairly psychically damaged.
0:38:01 > 0:38:04Not probably. I WAS psychically damaged.
0:38:04 > 0:38:07I guess trying to get what I was understanding
0:38:07 > 0:38:09expressed in musical form.
0:38:12 > 0:38:13Everybody was on drugs.
0:38:13 > 0:38:16At that period of time, we were all well out there.
0:38:16 > 0:38:18But not so out there that we didn't make a great record
0:38:18 > 0:38:20so, I mean, you know.
0:38:20 > 0:38:22Or maybe our view of being out there
0:38:22 > 0:38:25and being people's views of being out there
0:38:25 > 0:38:27doesn't necessarily correlate with the fact
0:38:27 > 0:38:29that we were incapable of making a record.
0:38:29 > 0:38:32Whatever "out there" was, "out there" worked.
0:38:33 > 0:38:36I think the biggest influence on that album was
0:38:36 > 0:38:40the work of Kraftwerk, and the new German sound.
0:38:40 > 0:38:42I tried to apply some of the randomness
0:38:42 > 0:38:45and I utilised a lot of that feeling for especially the title track,
0:38:45 > 0:38:48Station To Station.
0:38:48 > 0:38:51The feedback intro at the beginning of Station To Station
0:38:51 > 0:38:53was an idea that David had.
0:38:53 > 0:38:56So we had a few Marshall stacks on the back wall
0:38:56 > 0:38:59and we just did the feedback together something like...
0:38:59 > 0:39:02GUITAR PRODUCES FEEDBACK
0:39:04 > 0:39:08Earl Slick was asked to do something unnatural and that was,
0:39:08 > 0:39:11"I want you to sustain a note for, like, 15 years!"
0:39:17 > 0:39:20Boom!
0:39:20 > 0:39:23You are waiting for your part but you can't. You've got to hold it.
0:39:23 > 0:39:25Don't play, don't play, just hold it.
0:39:25 > 0:39:27Finally you get to play one little thing.
0:39:28 > 0:39:33Station To Station, I really can't put a title on what it is he does.
0:39:33 > 0:39:36I mean, I can put a title on Young Americans
0:39:36 > 0:39:39but everything after that I don't have a title for it.
0:39:49 > 0:39:54It was supposed to be deadly, and just brutal.
0:39:54 > 0:39:59Just this hard, hard, heavy, dark, dark texture
0:39:59 > 0:40:03that just laid down.
0:40:03 > 0:40:04Just bog it down, bog it down.
0:40:06 > 0:40:11# The return of the Thin White Duke
0:40:11 > 0:40:15# Throwing darts in lovers' eyes
0:40:16 > 0:40:20# Here am I
0:40:20 > 0:40:22# One magical movement
0:40:22 > 0:40:27# Such is the stuff from where dreams are woven. #
0:40:27 > 0:40:29Station To Station dealt with a character called
0:40:29 > 0:40:32the Thin White Duke, who was a European living in America,
0:40:32 > 0:40:35who wanted to get back to Europe again.
0:40:35 > 0:40:38# Bending sound
0:40:38 > 0:40:42# Dredging the ocean lost in my circle. #
0:40:43 > 0:40:45Know what I think?
0:40:45 > 0:40:49I think a lot of really nasty shit happened, business wise,
0:40:49 > 0:40:55and with hangers on and all these useless fucks that you accumulate.
0:40:55 > 0:40:59# It's not the side effects of the cocaine
0:40:59 > 0:41:03# I'm thinking that it must be love
0:41:03 > 0:41:06# It's too late to be grateful
0:41:06 > 0:41:10# It's too late to be late again
0:41:10 > 0:41:14# It's too late to be hateful
0:41:14 > 0:41:16# The European cannon is here. #
0:41:16 > 0:41:20I started really getting very, very worried for my life.
0:41:20 > 0:41:23I just had to get myself out of that situation.
0:41:24 > 0:41:28It wasn't surprising at all that he wanted away from LA.
0:41:28 > 0:41:30He hated LA towards the end.
0:41:30 > 0:41:34LA at that point was a very, very alien society.
0:41:34 > 0:41:37It was kind of unreal with unreal people.
0:41:40 > 0:41:43I just did too much and I came close several times to overdosing.
0:41:43 > 0:41:47It was like being in a car where the steering had gone out of control
0:41:47 > 0:41:49and you were going towards the edge of a cliff.
0:41:49 > 0:41:53I'd almost resigned myself to the fact that I'm going over the edge.
0:41:53 > 0:41:55You know, I'm not going to be able to stop.
0:42:55 > 0:42:58I was tiring of the method I was writing.
0:42:58 > 0:43:00I wanted to develop a new language
0:43:00 > 0:43:03so I knew that my next move was to have to do that.
0:43:03 > 0:43:07I discarded for the time being characters and environments.
0:43:07 > 0:43:10I couldn't look at myself properly at the time.
0:43:10 > 0:43:14I needed some help and who better to work with, I thought, than Eno.
0:43:14 > 0:43:17And, of course, I found what I consider a soul mate there.
0:43:20 > 0:43:23He's a constantly changing person.
0:43:23 > 0:43:27I knew he was sort of getting tired with the way he'd been working.
0:43:27 > 0:43:32I knew also he liked a particular album that I had made very much.
0:43:32 > 0:43:37It was Discrete Music, which is my longest, slowest, quietest album.
0:43:53 > 0:43:56The fact that he liked that sort of alerted me to the idea that
0:43:56 > 0:43:59he was wanting to go somewhere else in his own music.
0:44:01 > 0:44:03We would get in the studio, it was really wide open.
0:44:03 > 0:44:05That's why I like doing recordings with him
0:44:05 > 0:44:09because it was, like, real easy, you know.
0:44:09 > 0:44:11Until Brian Eno came along.
0:44:11 > 0:44:13That Brian Eno, he was a character!
0:44:13 > 0:44:16The problem actually I had at that time was that
0:44:16 > 0:44:20I didn't really understand how good musicians worked.
0:44:20 > 0:44:24I'm not a musician myself in that sense.
0:44:24 > 0:44:27Brian Eno had a blackboard, you know,
0:44:27 > 0:44:30like elementary school, you know.
0:44:30 > 0:44:33I'm like, "You've got a blackboard. So?"
0:44:33 > 0:44:38So we started coming up with these ideas for different chords.
0:44:38 > 0:44:40E, C, G, B, and so he'd go,
0:44:40 > 0:44:45"I'm going to point to that chord and you play that chord
0:44:45 > 0:44:47"and then I'll point to another."
0:44:47 > 0:44:49So I'm playing and it goes D.
0:44:54 > 0:44:57When you're working with really great players,
0:44:57 > 0:45:01like Carlos and Dennis, you have to accept that they have a way of
0:45:01 > 0:45:05processing information that is beyond intellectual.
0:45:05 > 0:45:09"Dude, man. Hey, Brian, look. What are you... This is...
0:45:09 > 0:45:11"This isn't working for me, man."
0:45:13 > 0:45:18But with their incredibly natural musicianship,
0:45:18 > 0:45:21the two together produce something that, again,
0:45:21 > 0:45:23one wouldn't have had with either on their own.
0:45:23 > 0:45:27I mean, some of it worked, some of it didn't,
0:45:27 > 0:45:30but quite honestly it did take me out of my comfort zone
0:45:30 > 0:45:33and it did make me leave my frustration at what I was doing
0:45:33 > 0:45:36and totally look at it from another different point of view
0:45:36 > 0:45:38and, although I didn't like the point of view,
0:45:38 > 0:45:40when I came back, I was fresh.
0:45:51 > 0:45:54I think Eno opened up new doors of perception.
0:45:54 > 0:45:57In terms of the use of the studio,
0:45:57 > 0:46:01I'd never used a studio in quite the way that Brian was using it.
0:46:03 > 0:46:07I received a phone call from David and Brian Eno
0:46:07 > 0:46:10and they said, "What can you bring to the table?"
0:46:10 > 0:46:13I said, "I've got this new thing called a harmoniser."
0:46:13 > 0:46:15And they said, "What does this thing do?"
0:46:15 > 0:46:17And I thought, and I said,
0:46:17 > 0:46:22"It fucks with the fabric of time. This is science fiction."
0:46:22 > 0:46:25And I could hear the two of them whooping on the other end.
0:46:25 > 0:46:28They just went, like, "Whoa! Woo!"
0:46:28 > 0:46:30Something like that, you know.
0:46:30 > 0:46:31It was very exciting
0:46:31 > 0:46:34because it enabled you to change the pitch of things.
0:46:34 > 0:46:37So what we did with Dennis' snare drum was
0:46:37 > 0:46:40we fed it through the harmoniser,
0:46:40 > 0:46:43dropped its pitch and then fed that back through again.
0:46:43 > 0:46:46so it goes... but faster.
0:46:50 > 0:46:52Even though, musically,
0:46:52 > 0:46:56it has absolutely nothing to do with the blues,
0:46:56 > 0:47:00Low is, in a weird way, Bowie's blues album.
0:47:00 > 0:47:02His marriage was breaking up.
0:47:02 > 0:47:06He was having serious business hassles with ex-managers.
0:47:06 > 0:47:11And, like a blues man, he was attempting to deal with those
0:47:11 > 0:47:16troubles by, as part of the process, singing about them.
0:47:16 > 0:47:18It was evident that he was having problems
0:47:18 > 0:47:21and he wanted to come into the studio to get away from everything
0:47:21 > 0:47:24but you kind of bring everything with you and so Breaking Glass
0:47:24 > 0:47:26had that kind of feeling so we started it,
0:47:26 > 0:47:29and he really wanted, like, angry, very, very punky.
0:47:29 > 0:47:31David came up with...
0:47:31 > 0:47:33# Baby
0:47:33 > 0:47:35# I've been
0:47:35 > 0:47:38# Breaking glass in your... #
0:47:38 > 0:47:39And I was trying to figure out,
0:47:39 > 0:47:42he probably did that shit yesterday in somebody's room.
0:47:44 > 0:47:48You know, cos David writes this stuff about life shit.
0:47:55 > 0:47:57And it had that kind of...
0:47:57 > 0:48:01# I've been breaking glass in my room again. #
0:48:01 > 0:48:06Then Dennis and George kicked in with theirs so it was just...
0:48:06 > 0:48:08# Baby
0:48:08 > 0:48:09# I've been
0:48:11 > 0:48:14# Breaking glass in your room again
0:48:15 > 0:48:17# Listen. #
0:48:17 > 0:48:20It just needed a positive decision to only do what I want to do
0:48:20 > 0:48:22and not do things for the sake of what,
0:48:22 > 0:48:26either David Bowie or whoever I was playing last time,
0:48:26 > 0:48:28Thin White Duke or something, was expected to do.
0:48:31 > 0:48:34# I drew something awful on it. #
0:48:35 > 0:48:38What I think excites both of us
0:48:38 > 0:48:42is the idea of going where nobody's been before
0:48:42 > 0:48:46and trying to find out what you could do there, you know.
0:48:46 > 0:48:48David, I think, was really interested
0:48:48 > 0:48:51in new moods and landscapes and textures
0:48:51 > 0:48:53that you could get with electronics
0:48:53 > 0:48:57and he didn't feel a compulsion to turn everything into a song.
0:49:07 > 0:49:10I cannot think of anybody comparable
0:49:10 > 0:49:12in terms of being sort of that famous.
0:49:12 > 0:49:15Dylan, The Stones, The Beatles.
0:49:15 > 0:49:18Elvis. People of that stature.
0:49:18 > 0:49:20Can you imagine even any of those people
0:49:20 > 0:49:24making a record which was half instrumental
0:49:24 > 0:49:27at the supposed peak of their career?
0:49:27 > 0:49:29It was never going to happen.
0:49:29 > 0:49:32# Milejo
0:49:35 > 0:49:38# Sula vie
0:49:38 > 0:49:41# Milejo, ejo. #
0:49:43 > 0:49:47On Warszawa he was using sort of non-language
0:49:47 > 0:49:50so they still weren't songs in the conventional sense.
0:50:00 > 0:50:02Is there a danger that, by following your instinct,
0:50:02 > 0:50:05that you will jeopardise the money and the good life?
0:50:05 > 0:50:08No shit, Sherlock!
0:50:08 > 0:50:13Yes, I think I've rather hit that one on the head at the moment.
0:50:15 > 0:50:17And it's quite a relief, really.
0:50:17 > 0:50:21I feel a lot more...free.
0:50:26 > 0:50:28Some critics who wrote about it,
0:50:28 > 0:50:34god, they really need...they really need to get a proper job sometimes.
0:50:35 > 0:50:38They kind of moan about it. "Oh, what are you doing?"
0:50:40 > 0:50:44'I don't give a shit about how clever it may or may not be.
0:50:44 > 0:50:48'It stinks of artfully counterfeited spiritual defeat and futility
0:50:48 > 0:50:51'and emptiness. We're low enough already, David.
0:50:51 > 0:50:55'Give us a high or else just swap tapes with Eno by post
0:50:55 > 0:50:59'and leave those of us who'd rather search for solutions than lie
0:50:59 > 0:51:04'down and be counted to try and find ourselves instead of lose ourselves.
0:51:04 > 0:51:07'You're a wonderful person but you've got problems.'
0:51:08 > 0:51:10Yeah, that's what I wrote.
0:51:12 > 0:51:17The music to me sounds really a little a bit alienated
0:51:17 > 0:51:20- so I'm very surprised... - Alienated from what?
0:51:20 > 0:51:23From...from...from... OK, from my world.
0:51:23 > 0:51:25From your world? Uh-huh, OK.
0:51:25 > 0:51:27Can you understand it?
0:51:27 > 0:51:30Yes, I can because it's new language.
0:51:46 > 0:51:48I went naked in Berlin.
0:51:48 > 0:51:51I really did try and strip down my life
0:51:51 > 0:51:54to what I believed to be absolute basic essentials
0:51:54 > 0:51:56so I could build up again.
0:51:56 > 0:51:58I virtually gave a lot of possessions away,
0:51:58 > 0:52:02and my wardrobe really was just jeans and checked shirts
0:52:02 > 0:52:06and that's how I walked about and I had a bicycle and that was it.
0:52:06 > 0:52:10I think it was the first freedom I'd had from all those
0:52:10 > 0:52:12so-called trappings of celebrity.
0:52:20 > 0:52:22He was kind of recuperating.
0:52:22 > 0:52:25He soaked up all this very fascinating European music
0:52:25 > 0:52:27and carried on making albums.
0:52:27 > 0:52:30It's better than sitting in the Priory for two years.
0:52:42 > 0:52:46David and I were talking. We had a number of pieces in progress
0:52:46 > 0:52:53and David said, "What shall we do next? How should we work on them?"
0:52:53 > 0:52:57I said, "Well, why don't we call Fripp and see what he would offer?"
0:53:00 > 0:53:01The voice came on and said,
0:53:01 > 0:53:04"It's Brian, hello! I'm here with David. We're in Berlin.
0:53:04 > 0:53:10"Hang on, I'll pass you over," so Eno passed the phone over to David
0:53:10 > 0:53:13and David said, "Hello, we're here in...
0:53:13 > 0:53:17"Do you think you can play some hairy rock'n'roll guitar?"
0:53:17 > 0:53:20What is hairy rock'n'roll?
0:53:20 > 0:53:21It has danger.
0:53:21 > 0:53:25What is the difference between pop
0:53:25 > 0:53:27and rock'n'roll?
0:53:31 > 0:53:34You might get fucked.
0:53:34 > 0:53:35Can you put that in
0:53:35 > 0:53:39or should I express it in alternative terminology?
0:53:41 > 0:53:45It was a collaboration, a highly successful collaboration,
0:53:45 > 0:53:49the new one, and with the addition of Fripp as middle man,
0:53:49 > 0:53:51I think that helped an awful lot as well.
0:53:53 > 0:53:57And Eno said, "Well, why don't you plug in?" So I plugged in.
0:53:57 > 0:53:59They hit the play button.
0:54:02 > 0:54:05And then on bar three you'll hear...
0:54:05 > 0:54:07with skysaw guitars,
0:54:07 > 0:54:09and that's straight into Beauty And The Beast
0:54:09 > 0:54:13and what you hear on the record, the first track of Heroes,
0:54:13 > 0:54:16is the first note I played on the session, first take,
0:54:16 > 0:54:18going all the way through.
0:54:18 > 0:54:21# Down the highway, sing the song
0:54:21 > 0:54:24# That's my kind of highway gone wrong
0:54:28 > 0:54:30# My my
0:54:30 > 0:54:32# Smile at least
0:54:32 > 0:54:35# You can't say never to the beauty and the beast. #
0:54:37 > 0:54:41Anyone who's playing Beauty And The Beast,
0:54:41 > 0:54:43you know they get erections.
0:54:43 > 0:54:47# There's something in the night, something in the day
0:54:47 > 0:54:51# Nothing is wrong but darling someone's in the way
0:54:51 > 0:54:55# There's slaughter in the air, protest on the wind
0:54:55 > 0:54:57# Someone deep inside of me
0:54:57 > 0:55:00# Someone could get skinned, how? #
0:55:00 > 0:55:06Most of Heroes takes you back to that very poetic, somewhat obtuse,
0:55:06 > 0:55:09often gloriously indecipherable way of doing things
0:55:09 > 0:55:11which you'd heard in Station To Station.
0:55:11 > 0:55:14It's great but I don't really know what he's talking about
0:55:14 > 0:55:18and so the sort of mystery kind of returns.
0:55:24 > 0:55:27But, at the same time, the title song of Heroes is an exception to
0:55:27 > 0:55:31that idea that he's sort of become very obtuse again.
0:55:31 > 0:55:35MUSIC: "Heroes" by David Bowie
0:55:37 > 0:55:40I always knew that was going to be a great song
0:55:40 > 0:55:43from the very first moment those guys started playing it.
0:55:43 > 0:55:46You thought, "OK, yes, this is a good one."
0:55:46 > 0:55:49And then I think the really crucial moment in it came
0:55:49 > 0:55:51actually with Fripp.
0:55:57 > 0:55:59# I
0:56:00 > 0:56:02# I wish you could swim. #
0:56:02 > 0:56:06Fripp's plaintive guitar cry really triggered off something
0:56:06 > 0:56:10emotive in me, and it was a song of triumph, and it was like,
0:56:10 > 0:56:12"I've been a real idiot some of my life
0:56:12 > 0:56:16"and put myself in ridiculously dangerous situations
0:56:16 > 0:56:18"and I seem to have been getting through it."
0:56:18 > 0:56:21And that became part and parcel of that song.
0:56:21 > 0:56:23You can overcome some incredible odds.
0:56:23 > 0:56:26# We can beat them
0:56:26 > 0:56:28# Forever and ever
0:56:30 > 0:56:33# Oh, we can be heroes
0:56:34 > 0:56:37# Just for one day. #
0:56:38 > 0:56:42Fripp did three takes on it and we used all three.
0:56:42 > 0:56:45This is Tony Visconti's genius that he can do that
0:56:45 > 0:56:47without it sounding a mess.
0:56:52 > 0:56:55David sat down in the control room
0:56:55 > 0:56:58and he said, "Could you just take a walk?"
0:56:58 > 0:57:02He goes, "I'm writing and I just want to be to myself
0:57:02 > 0:57:04"and I want to finish these lyrics."
0:57:04 > 0:57:09So I was having a little flirtation, shall we say,
0:57:09 > 0:57:11with the singer Antonia Maass.
0:57:11 > 0:57:15She was the female vocalist on the album.
0:57:17 > 0:57:20We walked outside the studio where, from the control room,
0:57:20 > 0:57:25you could see the Berlin Wall and you could see a lot of rubble
0:57:25 > 0:57:27and you could see the guards and the gun turrets.
0:57:29 > 0:57:33And right beneath the window we had a little snog.
0:57:33 > 0:57:37And David saw that and he said, "That's the second verse!"
0:57:40 > 0:57:42# And we kissed
0:57:43 > 0:57:46# As though nothing could fall. #
0:57:46 > 0:57:48The thing that was most exciting about it all is that
0:57:48 > 0:57:51I found that without drugs I was still writing very well,
0:57:51 > 0:57:55you know, and that was probably the most rejuvenating aspect of it all,
0:57:55 > 0:57:58is that you don't need to get stoned out of your gourd to write well,
0:57:58 > 0:57:59you know? I think that was,
0:57:59 > 0:58:02you know, an incredibly important period for me.
0:58:02 > 0:58:04Not very fast, are you?
0:58:04 > 0:58:07I can't say it was like night and day that suddenly
0:58:07 > 0:58:09was this different person.
0:58:09 > 0:58:11It wasn't. It took quite a long time.
0:58:11 > 0:58:14But I think, you know, I did see light at the end of the tunnel,
0:58:14 > 0:58:16and it wasn't a train.
0:58:18 > 0:58:22When I met Bowie again around the time of Heroes
0:58:22 > 0:58:26I was struck by the fact that his hair was its natural colour,
0:58:26 > 0:58:28he wasn't wearing any make up,
0:58:28 > 0:58:30he was wearing a shirt so un-rockstar-y
0:58:30 > 0:58:34it virtually qualified as suburban casual wear.
0:58:34 > 0:58:39It was almost like saying, "OK, this is the real me."
0:58:39 > 0:58:42Though, of course, one did suspect
0:58:42 > 0:58:46is this affable natural Dave
0:58:46 > 0:58:48simply the latest mask?
0:58:48 > 0:58:53And is there something still lurking beneath
0:58:53 > 0:58:56this apparently lifelike surface?
0:58:56 > 0:58:58- Can I ask you one last thing?- Mm.
0:58:58 > 0:59:00People I've talked to who worked with you say
0:59:00 > 0:59:02you're a very personal person, if you know what I mean?
0:59:02 > 0:59:05- People who go out with me? - No, to WORK with you!
0:59:05 > 0:59:07I thought you said people who go out with me!
0:59:07 > 0:59:11You're a very, erm... Not secretive, but personal.
0:59:11 > 0:59:14- Keep things to yourself. - Quite...quite quiet, yes.
0:59:14 > 0:59:16Do you think you're shy?
0:59:17 > 0:59:18No.
0:59:18 > 0:59:21No, I'm not really shy. I'm just a bit quiet.
0:59:21 > 0:59:23Do you think if you didn't keep things to yourself
0:59:23 > 0:59:26people wouldn't be surprised at what you did next?
0:59:27 > 0:59:29I've never really thought about that.
0:59:29 > 0:59:31- I'll let you know after the show. - OK, thanks.
0:59:31 > 0:59:34Off to do a show. Come with me?
0:59:37 > 0:59:40AUDIENCE CHEERS
0:59:41 > 0:59:44MUSIC: "Heroes" by David Bowie
0:59:58 > 1:00:01# I
1:00:02 > 1:00:05# I will be king
1:00:08 > 1:00:10# And you
1:00:11 > 1:00:14# You will be my queen
1:00:17 > 1:00:20# Though nothing
1:00:20 > 1:00:23# Can keep us together
1:00:26 > 1:00:28# We can beat them
1:00:29 > 1:00:32# Forever and ever. #
1:00:32 > 1:00:34I guess you merit being seen as the ultimate artist of your era
1:00:34 > 1:00:36if you do two things.
1:00:36 > 1:00:40First of all, if you change what you do at a mind-boggling rate.
1:00:40 > 1:00:44If you're not only prodigious, but the diversity of the work you
1:00:44 > 1:00:47come up with is incredible, and Bowie does that in the '70s.
1:00:47 > 1:00:49And then the other thing is
1:00:49 > 1:00:51whether you act as a lightning rod for your time.
1:00:52 > 1:00:54# And the shame
1:00:55 > 1:00:58# Fell on the other side
1:01:00 > 1:01:03# Oh, we can beat them
1:01:04 > 1:01:06# Forever and ever
1:01:08 > 1:01:11# We could be heroes
1:01:12 > 1:01:15# Just for one day. #
1:01:33 > 1:01:37David, looking back over the '70s, into the '80s,
1:01:37 > 1:01:40how do you look at music in the '70s?
1:01:41 > 1:01:43Sort of like this.
1:01:44 > 1:01:47# Ground Control to Major Tom
1:01:51 > 1:01:54# Ground Control to Major Tom
1:01:58 > 1:02:03# Take your protein pills and put your helmet on
1:02:05 > 1:02:08# Ground Control to Major Tom
1:02:12 > 1:02:16# Commencing countdown, engines on
1:02:20 > 1:02:25# Check ignition and may God's love be with you. #
1:02:26 > 1:02:29The Kenny Everett Video Show was sort of cheerleader in England
1:02:29 > 1:02:31for what we might call the video generation,
1:02:31 > 1:02:34what we might call the music video generation, which, at that time,
1:02:34 > 1:02:40was so totally new to the Brits and indeed unheard of to the Americans,
1:02:40 > 1:02:42that I think he immediately clocked it.
1:02:42 > 1:02:44And the Space Oddity video
1:02:44 > 1:02:47was really something that we cobbled together quite quickly.
1:02:47 > 1:02:50# You've really made the grade
1:02:52 > 1:02:58# And the papers want to know whose shirts you wear. #
1:02:58 > 1:03:01I think Major Tom is the first time I'd been able to create
1:03:01 > 1:03:04a character that was very credible.
1:03:04 > 1:03:07I think, for any writer, that's a high point.
1:03:07 > 1:03:08He preceded all the others
1:03:08 > 1:03:11and I suppose one has a special place for him.
1:03:11 > 1:03:13# ..to Ground Control
1:03:13 > 1:03:16# I'm stepping through the door. #
1:03:17 > 1:03:22It is very interesting that, at the end of the '70s,
1:03:22 > 1:03:25he goes back to his first key character.
1:03:25 > 1:03:27Major Tom returns, in the sense of
1:03:27 > 1:03:29an updated performance of Space Oddity.
1:03:29 > 1:03:34But then he takes the character of Major Tom,
1:03:34 > 1:03:37puts it in a new song and does very interesting things with it.
1:03:37 > 1:03:41So Major Tom becomes a much more discomforting, sinister figure.
1:03:42 > 1:03:46# Do you remember a guy that's been
1:03:46 > 1:03:50# In such an early song
1:03:50 > 1:03:54# I heard a rumour from Ground Control
1:03:54 > 1:03:58# Oh, no, don't say it's true
1:03:58 > 1:04:01# Got a message from the action man
1:04:01 > 1:04:07# I'm happy, hope you're happy too. #
1:04:07 > 1:04:10Major Tom became a little, sort of, bouncy hero.
1:04:10 > 1:04:13I just wanted to sort of bring him up-to-date a little bit
1:04:13 > 1:04:16and put him in a Victorian nursery rhyme kind of atmosphere.
1:04:16 > 1:04:20Even though it's not Victorian, it has that queasiness of those,
1:04:20 > 1:04:22# Ring a ring of roses
1:04:22 > 1:04:25# This is about the plague and we're all going to drop down dead #
1:04:25 > 1:04:29kind of thing about it, which is what I did with the piece.
1:04:29 > 1:04:34# I'm happy, hope you're happy too
1:04:34 > 1:04:37# I've loved and I've needed love
1:04:37 > 1:04:40# Sordid details following. #
1:04:40 > 1:04:43David rang me. "Could we make a video for this new single?"
1:04:43 > 1:04:47We sat round a table and he said, "I want to be a clown on the beach."
1:04:47 > 1:04:50I said, "Whoopee, I've just done something on a beach and by accident
1:04:50 > 1:04:53"I found this great effect of making the sky black
1:04:53 > 1:04:54"and everybody have a halo."
1:04:54 > 1:04:57Then he wanted a digger.
1:04:57 > 1:05:02# But I'm hoping to kick but the planet is glowing
1:05:04 > 1:05:08# Ashes to ashes, funk to funky
1:05:08 > 1:05:12# We know Major Tom's a junkie. #
1:05:12 > 1:05:17David allows me lots and lots of freedom to do very much what I want,
1:05:17 > 1:05:21the ways I want it edited. I storyboard it for him,
1:05:21 > 1:05:23show him exactly what frames I want done.
1:05:34 > 1:05:36And then he puts his input in as well.
1:05:36 > 1:05:38And, especially on Ashes to Ashes,
1:05:38 > 1:05:40the combination has been very successful.
1:05:42 > 1:05:45The people round the bonfire on the beach in Ashes to Ashes
1:05:45 > 1:05:47were people from Blitz, which is a London club,
1:05:47 > 1:05:51which was the precursor of the Modern Romantic movement.
1:05:51 > 1:05:54David managed to clock the whole Modern Romantic movement
1:05:54 > 1:05:56way before anybody else.
1:05:59 > 1:06:03It showed him co-opting a new phase of youth culture,
1:06:03 > 1:06:08which he'd been the key figure in inspiring in the first place.
1:06:08 > 1:06:12So some might say he was imitating his imitators.
1:06:12 > 1:06:17Others were saying he was buying them off and getting them onboard.
1:06:20 > 1:06:22It's certainly one of the better songs I've ever written
1:06:22 > 1:06:27in terms of familiarity and a song that really hooks in.
1:06:27 > 1:06:31I felt very positive about the future and I got down
1:06:31 > 1:06:34to writing a really comprehensive and well-crafted album.
1:06:37 > 1:06:41David came into the studio with a lot of ideas
1:06:41 > 1:06:46and I remember he had his demos on a new contraption called a Walkman.
1:06:46 > 1:06:50Carlos Alomar flipped when he saw it and heard it.
1:06:50 > 1:06:53Fashion for the Scary Monsters album,
1:06:53 > 1:06:57David had this need to maybe even reproduce a bit of the Fame feeling
1:06:57 > 1:07:01so we wanted to keep everything up so it would give him
1:07:01 > 1:07:05a secure commercially viable album that he could work with.
1:07:05 > 1:07:09So Fashion started just with this very funky beat.
1:07:09 > 1:07:12PLAYS RIFF
1:07:12 > 1:07:13Then it grew it into a monster.
1:07:13 > 1:07:15People started over-dubbing stuff on it.
1:07:15 > 1:07:19Fripp started over dubbing this crazy guitar to it.
1:07:24 > 1:07:28It was just evolving into a fantastic track.
1:07:30 > 1:07:33I don't believe you'll find another guitarist who would have
1:07:33 > 1:07:35played that to that.
1:07:37 > 1:07:38It's very out.
1:07:38 > 1:07:42From a point of view of making a contribution to the work
1:07:42 > 1:07:48of an artist with their producer, the opportunity to do that
1:07:48 > 1:07:51and be supported and encouraged in it...
1:07:53 > 1:07:56..it's out, it's out.
1:07:58 > 1:08:02# There's a brand-new dance but I don't know its name
1:08:07 > 1:08:11# That people from bad homes do again and again. #
1:08:11 > 1:08:15It was kind of a little wary of the Lemming-like quality
1:08:15 > 1:08:16that people were slaves to fashion.
1:08:16 > 1:08:20# It's big and it's bland, full of tension and fear. #
1:08:22 > 1:08:26It was dictatorial authority that the thing seems to grasp people.
1:08:26 > 1:08:30It was a lightweight, throw-away song, as important as fashion.
1:08:34 > 1:08:36# Fashion, turn to the left
1:08:36 > 1:08:39# Fashion, turn to the right
1:08:39 > 1:08:42# Oooh, fashion!
1:08:43 > 1:08:48# We are the goon squad and we're coming to town, beep-beep. #
1:08:48 > 1:08:52'We are the goon squad and we're coming to town, beep-beep.'
1:08:53 > 1:08:57Now, ain't that a line which sticks in the mind?
1:09:01 > 1:09:03# Listen to me, don't listen to me
1:09:03 > 1:09:05# Talk to me, don't talk to me
1:09:05 > 1:09:08# Dance with me, don't dance with me
1:09:08 > 1:09:10# No, beep-beep. #
1:09:15 > 1:09:17And now Bowie in New York.
1:09:17 > 1:09:20The play in which rock star David Bowie has scored a remarkable triumph
1:09:20 > 1:09:22on Broadway is called The Elephant Man.
1:09:22 > 1:09:24Bowie's first appearance as a straight actor met with
1:09:24 > 1:09:26almost universal praise from the New York critics
1:09:26 > 1:09:28and there are long lines at the box office.
1:09:28 > 1:09:31The baths have rid you of your odour, have they not?
1:09:31 > 1:09:36First chance I've had to bathe regular...ly.
1:09:37 > 1:09:41'I went to see it on Broadway and I was totally knocked out by it.'
1:09:41 > 1:09:44And then Jack Hofsiss, the director, came to see me
1:09:44 > 1:09:47a couple of months later whilst I was back in New York yet again
1:09:47 > 1:09:51doing the Scary Monsters album, and asked me if I would consider
1:09:51 > 1:09:53taking over the role at the end of the year.
1:09:53 > 1:09:56And I was flabbergasted cos I had never been asked to do anything
1:09:56 > 1:09:58that sort of supposedly legit.
1:09:58 > 1:10:01This is your promised land, is it not?
1:10:01 > 1:10:05A roof, food, care, protection?
1:10:06 > 1:10:09Right, Mr Treves.
1:10:09 > 1:10:14'I noticed that, as David created the voice for the character,
1:10:14 > 1:10:18'there was a quality there that was very unique.'
1:10:18 > 1:10:23I thought that was the core of the uniqueness of his performance.
1:10:23 > 1:10:25You call it home.
1:10:27 > 1:10:29Never had a home before.
1:10:29 > 1:10:31Well, you have one now.
1:10:31 > 1:10:33Say it, John, home!
1:10:33 > 1:10:37- Home?- No, no, I mean REALLY say it. "I have a home.
1:10:37 > 1:10:41"This is my..." Come on.
1:10:41 > 1:10:43I have a home.
1:10:43 > 1:10:45This is...
1:10:45 > 1:10:47my home.
1:10:47 > 1:10:49'There was no make-up at all.'
1:10:49 > 1:10:53This... is my home?
1:10:53 > 1:10:57And that demanded that the audience,
1:10:57 > 1:10:59in conjunction with the actor,
1:10:59 > 1:11:04imagined what this guy really looked like
1:11:04 > 1:11:06and the way he moved.
1:11:08 > 1:11:11I think the toughest part was just working with my own body
1:11:11 > 1:11:14and trying to create this really distorted ugly figure
1:11:14 > 1:11:15without using make up.
1:11:18 > 1:11:20It came very naturally to me.
1:11:20 > 1:11:22I presume that it was something to do with the mime training
1:11:22 > 1:11:25that I had earlier.
1:11:26 > 1:11:28I have to say that you can tell
1:11:28 > 1:11:32when there's a real actor coming back at you when you rehearse.
1:11:34 > 1:11:37And in his case it was a real actor there
1:11:37 > 1:11:39and that's the highest praise I can give him.
1:11:39 > 1:11:44I am reading Romeo and Juliet.
1:11:44 > 1:11:47Ah, Juliet! What a love story.
1:11:47 > 1:11:49I adore love stories.
1:11:49 > 1:11:52I like love stories best, too.
1:11:52 > 1:11:56If I had been Romeo, guess what?
1:11:59 > 1:12:01What?
1:12:01 > 1:12:05I would not have held the mirror to her breath.
1:12:05 > 1:12:06What?
1:12:12 > 1:12:17'I hope that he really knew how good he was in the part.'
1:12:19 > 1:12:24And it was a wonderful performance
1:12:24 > 1:12:27that remained wonderful throughout his entire run.
1:12:28 > 1:12:32If I had been Romeo,
1:12:32 > 1:12:34we would have got away.
1:13:00 > 1:13:05I think I wanted to re-evaluate what I wanted to do, musically.
1:13:05 > 1:13:08I did a hell of a lot in a short period and I needed to get
1:13:08 > 1:13:12some space away from writing music because it was becoming,
1:13:12 > 1:13:16possibly, too much of an exercise and the enthusiasm had gone.
1:13:16 > 1:13:19But now it seems to be back again.
1:13:35 > 1:13:37'EMI are celebrating.
1:13:37 > 1:13:40'Against serious opposition and for very serious money,
1:13:40 > 1:13:43'they've just signed a real superstar.'
1:13:43 > 1:13:46Ladies and gentleman, Mr David Bowie.
1:13:46 > 1:13:48APPLAUSE
1:13:48 > 1:13:52'EMI don't give lavish receptions like this very often.
1:13:52 > 1:13:54'They won't say how much they paid for Bowie but rumours
1:13:54 > 1:13:59'range from £10 million to £17 million for a five-year contract.'
1:14:04 > 1:14:08Reportedly so, yes. I'm overwhelmed that I've...
1:14:08 > 1:14:10Is that anywhere near accurate?
1:14:10 > 1:14:12It's absolutely nowhere near accurate.
1:14:12 > 1:14:16- Can you give us a more accurate figure?- Of course not.
1:14:16 > 1:14:18Thank you very much and good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.
1:14:19 > 1:14:23Bowie's attitude to himself and his music seems to have changed
1:14:23 > 1:14:25and with that comes a change of producer,
1:14:25 > 1:14:27so out goes Tony Visconti,
1:14:27 > 1:14:30who one associates with the art for art's sake period.
1:14:30 > 1:14:32And in comes Nile Rodgers.
1:14:32 > 1:14:36He's just had that huge run of hits with Chic and Sister Sledge.
1:14:36 > 1:14:39He's gone on to produce Diana Ross.
1:14:39 > 1:14:42But it just doesn't seem like what one would have expected from
1:14:42 > 1:14:44the David Bowie of the '70s and the first part of the '80s.
1:14:44 > 1:14:46Seems somewhat uncharacteristic.
1:14:51 > 1:14:54When we met originally, it was completely by chance,
1:14:54 > 1:14:58and he was sitting alone, back of this nightclub,
1:14:58 > 1:15:00and I spotted him right away.
1:15:00 > 1:15:05I walked in with Billy Idol and Billy walked in and went,
1:15:05 > 1:15:07"Bloody hell, that's David Bowie!"
1:15:07 > 1:15:09And when he said "Bowie,"
1:15:09 > 1:15:13cos he called him BOW-ie, we called him BOH-ie,
1:15:13 > 1:15:16he vomited, he barfed.
1:15:16 > 1:15:20It was, like, hysterical. By that time, I was already chatting him up.
1:15:22 > 1:15:28Later, David said to me that he wanted me to do what I did best.
1:15:28 > 1:15:31So when I asked David what he thought I did best,
1:15:31 > 1:15:34he looked at me and says, "You make hits."
1:15:37 > 1:15:40I was charged with the responsibility of doing such.
1:15:40 > 1:15:44So, one morning in Switzerland,
1:15:44 > 1:15:47he walks into my bedroom.
1:15:47 > 1:15:50He says something to the effect of,
1:15:50 > 1:15:54"Nile, darling, I think I have a song that feels like it's a hit".
1:15:56 > 1:15:59He comes in with this 12-string guitar
1:15:59 > 1:16:01that only has six strings on it.
1:16:05 > 1:16:08When you see a 12-string guitar, you're in folk city right away.
1:16:08 > 1:16:10Something like that.
1:16:10 > 1:16:13So when I started fooling around with it,
1:16:13 > 1:16:15I made it very jazzy, very cool,
1:16:15 > 1:16:19but Bowie is a jazzy cool guy, unbeknownst to most people,
1:16:19 > 1:16:21but I certainly knew that.
1:16:21 > 1:16:23So...
1:16:23 > 1:16:25It was cool.
1:16:25 > 1:16:28It was ultra-cool.
1:16:28 > 1:16:30It was pretty normal cool.
1:16:31 > 1:16:34But you put in the delays and all of a sudden you get groove and funk
1:16:34 > 1:16:36and rhythm all at the same time.
1:16:52 > 1:16:55# Let's dance. #
1:16:55 > 1:16:58It has an intention of being danceable but I think,
1:16:58 > 1:17:01in terms of lyric, I've tried to keep it simple as anything
1:17:01 > 1:17:03that I've ever written before.
1:17:03 > 1:17:07I'm trying to write in a more obvious and positive manner
1:17:07 > 1:17:09than I've written in a long time.
1:17:09 > 1:17:12# Let's dance
1:17:12 > 1:17:16# Put on your red shoes and dance the blues
1:17:17 > 1:17:20# Let's dance
1:17:20 > 1:17:24# To the song they're playing on the radio
1:17:26 > 1:17:28# Let's sway. #
1:17:28 > 1:17:30Let's Dance is an interesting song.
1:17:30 > 1:17:33because it's basically a funk groove, an old funk...
1:17:37 > 1:17:41# Sway through the crowd to an empty space. #
1:17:41 > 1:17:44And Nile just knew how to put that into place
1:17:44 > 1:17:45and then put the hook line behind it
1:17:45 > 1:17:48and in the shortest amount of time, you had the song.
1:17:50 > 1:17:54Let's Dance is not a traditional, what I would call, dance record,
1:17:54 > 1:17:58but it's certainly a record that does make you want to dance.
1:17:58 > 1:18:00I just thought to myself,
1:18:00 > 1:18:03"Man, if I don't make a record that makes people want to dance,
1:18:03 > 1:18:08"and we call the song Let's Dance, I'm going to have to trade in
1:18:08 > 1:18:12"my black union card, cos that just doesn't make sense."
1:18:12 > 1:18:17# Tremble like a flower. #
1:18:18 > 1:18:22This is something that can be played in every mall in America.
1:18:22 > 1:18:26It's a mainstream record by an artist who already has a pedigree.
1:18:26 > 1:18:29Mick Jagger tried to do his own Let's Dance a couple of times.
1:18:29 > 1:18:31Never worked.
1:18:32 > 1:18:34McCartney dabbled.
1:18:34 > 1:18:37A lot of those guys dabbled cos that was what was going on.
1:18:37 > 1:18:39None of them made a record as good as what Bowie made.
1:18:42 > 1:18:44# Under the moonlight
1:18:45 > 1:18:48# The serious moonlight. #
1:18:50 > 1:18:53I've tried to produce something that's warmer
1:18:53 > 1:18:57and more humanistic than anything that I've done for a long time.
1:18:57 > 1:19:02Less emphasis on the nihilistic kind of statement
1:19:02 > 1:19:07and the icy...one-dimensional kind of thing
1:19:07 > 1:19:09that I've been working with over the last few years.
1:19:11 > 1:19:15So we had cut Let's Dance and at the end of the day he gives me
1:19:15 > 1:19:20a copy of China Girl and says that he thinks it's a hit.
1:19:22 > 1:19:25So I wanted it to have a hook.
1:19:25 > 1:19:28I thought, "Man, maybe I'll key off the word China."
1:19:30 > 1:19:34PLAYS 'CHINA GIRL' RIFF
1:19:39 > 1:19:41And I said to myself,
1:19:41 > 1:19:44either David is going to hate this so much that he'll fire me
1:19:44 > 1:19:50or he'll get the comedic value of writing a silly little poppy thing.
1:19:50 > 1:19:53But I have to admit, I was nervous as hell
1:19:53 > 1:19:55and I played it for him
1:19:55 > 1:19:58and David went, "I love it."
1:20:01 > 1:20:05# Uh, oh, oh, oh, oh
1:20:05 > 1:20:08# Little China girl
1:20:08 > 1:20:12# Uh, oh, oh, oh, oh
1:20:12 > 1:20:13# Little China girl
1:20:13 > 1:20:17# I could escape this feeling
1:20:17 > 1:20:19# With my China girl
1:20:21 > 1:20:26# I feel a wreck without my little China girl
1:20:28 > 1:20:31# I hear her heart beating
1:20:31 > 1:20:34# Loud as thunder
1:20:34 > 1:20:38# Saw the stars crashing. #
1:20:39 > 1:20:43This is the '80s. It's MTV explosion time.
1:20:43 > 1:20:48He had been a video experimenter
1:20:48 > 1:20:52but this record put him right there in the middle of MTV-isation
1:20:52 > 1:20:55and gave his career a whole other life.
1:20:55 > 1:21:00# You know, I'll give you television
1:21:00 > 1:21:04# I'll give you eyes of blue
1:21:04 > 1:21:08# I'll give you men who want to rule the world
1:21:11 > 1:21:14# And when I get excited
1:21:14 > 1:21:17# My little China girl. #
1:21:17 > 1:21:21David went from being, let's say, a high profile cult star,
1:21:21 > 1:21:22to mainstream.
1:21:22 > 1:21:26The look was more mainstream, even though he had bleachy blond hair
1:21:26 > 1:21:27and all the suits and everything.
1:21:27 > 1:21:29It was a lot different than
1:21:29 > 1:21:33that Thin White Duke ominous character, or Ziggy.
1:21:33 > 1:21:36It was the most mainstream I'd ever seen him.
1:21:38 > 1:21:42Out of the clear blue sky, he was taking boxing lessons
1:21:42 > 1:21:45and, like, he was beefy, he was cleaner.
1:21:45 > 1:21:49Don't take any notice of them. They're all perfectly harmless.
1:21:49 > 1:21:52'He was happier and jovial.'
1:21:52 > 1:21:55On your new album, you're determined to be yourself.
1:21:55 > 1:21:59How do we know this isn't another one of your masks?
1:21:59 > 1:22:03I don't know. It's a bit like the boy who cried wolf.
1:22:03 > 1:22:06He was, "Hey!"
1:22:06 > 1:22:09you, know. I found it a little odd,
1:22:09 > 1:22:13in that it was a very happy David.
1:22:13 > 1:22:16Do you see the music going back to basics from here on?
1:22:19 > 1:22:23Tonight, I think it might be very basic.
1:22:23 > 1:22:26ANNOUNCER: Ladies and gentleman,
1:22:26 > 1:22:31the 1983 Serious Moonlight Tour!
1:22:31 > 1:22:33David Bowie!
1:22:33 > 1:22:36CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
1:22:36 > 1:22:39MUSIC: "Let's Dance" by David Bowie
1:22:53 > 1:22:55# Let's dance
1:22:55 > 1:22:59# Put on your red shoes and dance the blues
1:23:01 > 1:23:02# Let's dance
1:23:02 > 1:23:07# To the song they're playing on the radio. #
1:23:07 > 1:23:10I think we're out of characters now and just into suits
1:23:10 > 1:23:13and the suit will change from tour to tour,
1:23:13 > 1:23:16but the bloke inside it is generally much the same.
1:23:18 > 1:23:22# Sway through the crowd to an empty space. #
1:23:31 > 1:23:35Let's Dance hit so strongly that everything changed.
1:23:35 > 1:23:38We thought we were going to do a couple of indoor theatres,
1:23:38 > 1:23:39indoor arenas through Europe.
1:23:39 > 1:23:44It just quickly turned around, which was a surprise.
1:23:44 > 1:23:47And you're just riding this big old train going,
1:23:47 > 1:23:49"All right, everybody, hang on, here we go."
1:23:49 > 1:23:53# Fame makes a man take things over
1:23:55 > 1:23:58# Fame keeps him loose and hard to swallow
1:24:00 > 1:24:03# Fame puts him there, things are hollow
1:24:04 > 1:24:06# Fame. #
1:24:06 > 1:24:10It was beyond belief to me. Suddenly I wasn't a cult artist any more.
1:24:10 > 1:24:12It really was a shocker
1:24:12 > 1:24:15and we were scurrying around because we'd already started a tour
1:24:15 > 1:24:18and suddenly, like, we were doing stadiums out of nowhere.
1:24:18 > 1:24:22Gigs were being thrown out and stadiums were being put in.
1:24:22 > 1:24:25It was all by the shirt tails, the whole thing.
1:24:25 > 1:24:29Then suddenly, "Wow, I've just had the biggest album I've ever..."
1:24:29 > 1:24:31It was extremely odd.
1:24:31 > 1:24:35# Is it any wonder, I reject you first?
1:24:37 > 1:24:39# Fame, fame, fame, fame
1:24:42 > 1:24:45# Is it any wonder, you are too cool to fool. #
1:24:47 > 1:24:52The Serious Moonlight Tour was him capturing the planet as a whole.
1:24:52 > 1:24:55# Bully for you, chilly for me
1:24:55 > 1:24:58# Got to get a rain check on pain. #
1:24:58 > 1:25:01It was major at that point in time, in '83.
1:25:01 > 1:25:05Everyone in China, in Korea, and everywhere else in the world
1:25:05 > 1:25:07knew who David Bowie was
1:25:07 > 1:25:11because of that Serious Moonlight Tour, and it's a peak level.
1:25:13 > 1:25:17# Fame, fame, fame, fame, fame, fame, fame, fame, fame, fame, fame... #
1:25:29 > 1:25:32There's some moment when the audience comes to you
1:25:32 > 1:25:34as opposed to you going to them.
1:25:34 > 1:25:39He made a record that was an experimental record for him
1:25:39 > 1:25:42that actually worked on a pop level
1:25:42 > 1:25:45and that happens a lot for people.
1:25:46 > 1:25:52Every artist, their core group resents the fact that the outsiders
1:25:52 > 1:25:55are in on our secret, but that's the danger of a good record.
1:25:55 > 1:25:58You never know who's going to listen to it.
1:25:58 > 1:26:00# Fame, fame. #
1:26:00 > 1:26:03I allowed myself to be pushed into the commercial arena
1:26:03 > 1:26:07because I'd never been there and it was sort of, "Ooh, what's it like?"
1:26:07 > 1:26:12But there it was and I jumped in with my future in my hands.
1:26:12 > 1:26:18# Fame, fame, fame, fame, fame... #
1:26:18 > 1:26:20# What's your name? #
1:26:22 > 1:26:26CHEERING AND APPLAUSE
1:26:41 > 1:26:44People have this idea that he sort of drifted off into the stratosphere
1:26:44 > 1:26:47and, you know, rumour and gossip starts, and all of that.
1:26:51 > 1:26:55In a sense, he's regained
1:26:55 > 1:26:57the mystery and distance
1:26:57 > 1:27:01which was so powerful a part
1:27:01 > 1:27:07of what made him so exceptional in the 1970s.
1:27:07 > 1:27:12Suddenly, we don't know who David Bowie is once again.
1:27:16 > 1:27:20Even the current rather cat-and-mouse game that Bowie
1:27:20 > 1:27:24has been playing from his seclusion
1:27:24 > 1:27:27is reminiscent of Warhol, the master of games,
1:27:27 > 1:27:29pretending to be marginal,
1:27:29 > 1:27:32when, in fact, he is the great puppet master controlling it all.
1:27:35 > 1:27:38But then he comes back with this record, The Next Day,
1:27:38 > 1:27:41and he doesn't do interviews.
1:27:41 > 1:27:44We're back to the showbiz adage of leave them wanting more.
1:27:44 > 1:27:46Very David Bowie thing to do.
1:27:48 > 1:27:50Happy hump day, Phil.
1:27:50 > 1:27:52- I didn't get humped. You?- Yeah.
1:27:55 > 1:27:57Some people, huh, they just get lost.
1:27:57 > 1:28:01Well, it's more exciting than anything we've got around here.
1:28:01 > 1:28:03I wouldn't say that.
1:28:03 > 1:28:06We have a nice life.
1:28:06 > 1:28:08We have a nice life.
1:28:22 > 1:28:24# Pushing through the market square
1:28:27 > 1:28:30# So many mothers sighing
1:28:33 > 1:28:36# News had just come over
1:28:38 > 1:28:41# We had five years left to cry in
1:28:44 > 1:28:47# News guy wept when he told us
1:28:50 > 1:28:53# Earth was really dying
1:28:57 > 1:29:00# Cried so much that his face was wet
1:29:02 > 1:29:04# Knew he wasn't lying. #
1:29:04 > 1:29:06Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd