David Bowie Quotes

“The song was folky; David played it vaguely in the style of the Byrds, and it was called “Let’s Dance.” “And I was like, That’s not happening, man. It totally threw me. And it was not a song you could dance to.” Rodgers simply didn’t understand. Was this some kind of mind game? So he called a mutual friend in New York. “Do you think David is the kind of guy who would play a trick on me?” he asked. “Is he playing me this song he says is going to be a hit to see if I’m some sort of sycophant?”
― Paul Trynka, David Bowie: Starman

“On the album that would become Let’s Dance, his delegation was even more extreme, with Rodgers recruiting musicians as well as overseeing the finest details of the arrangements. It was Nile Rodgers who programmed the music. But it was David Bowie who programmed Nile Rodgers.”
― Paul Trynka, David Bowie: Starman

“Clos des Mésanges was a luxurious house; it had seven bedrooms and a caretaker’s lodge and was set on several acres of land in the village of Blonay, just above Lake Geneva.”
― Paul Trynka, David Bowie: Starman

“It was not an exercise in songwriting; it was a sculpture carved out of sound. In less than three years, David had not just changed genres; he had completely changed his working methods, from start to finish. This was the embodiment of the advice he’d given to Glenn Hughes earlier that year: “Do the contrary action—do something you’re not used to. Let’s not make it comfortable—let’s make it uncomfortable.” Station to Station’s chart performance was perhaps the ultimate vindication of this advice; it peaked at number 3 after its release in January of 1976. The critical reception, too, was respectful, recognizing the bravery with which Bowie had staked out new territory.”
― Paul Trynka, David Bowie: Starman

“just as it had in 1930s Hollywood: “It was, I’ll do anything, play anything, say anything, wear anything to become a star,” says David’s friend Scott Richardson, “and there’s nothing wrong with that. And there was a tremendous hunger on the part of the audience for it too. It was that moment in time.”
― Paul Trynka, David Bowie: Starman

“Marc Bolan—name-dropped in the line “the DJ was playing some get-it-on rock ’n’ roll”—had camped it up on Top of the Pops first, but he was cute, unthreatening; David and the Spiders were dangerous, a warning to lock up not only your daughters but also your sons.”
― Paul Trynka, David Bowie: Starman

“Having written the definitive anthem of the 1970s, David simply gave it away. Some thought that this was a self-serving act, designed to underline his own musical omnipotence. Bob Grace, the man who’d overseen most of Bowie’s recent songs, is emphatic that in giving away the song, Bowie paid a price: “I thought that was a mistake. If David had put out ‘All the Young Dudes’ himself that autumn, he would have been huge beyond our comprehension. It was great he gave [Mott] the song, but I’m convinced it cost him.” The argument ignores the fact that Bowie remained, at heart, a fan. This was simply a spontaneous act, and in any case the music was pouring out of him.”
― Paul Trynka, David Bowie: Starman

“a genius for inducing a powerful, platonic man-crush in fundamentally straight guys.”
― Paul Trynka, David Bowie: Starman

“In later months, Davies thought about the manifesto. There were gaps in it, bits that didn’t make sense, and he wondered if David knew that and decided it didn’t matter. Later still he realized what David had been doing: “He’d read about Elvis, and he’d read about Hollywood in the thirties and forties, and he was building a brand—before that language had even been invented.”
― Paul Trynka, David Bowie: Starman

“Ziggy was David’s homage to the outsider; the main inspiration was undoubtedly Iggy, the singer with whom David was obsessed and whose doomed, Dionysian career path had already built its own mythology. David was well aware that Iggy, too, was a mere creation—for in their first meeting, David had learned the scary, gold-and-glitter-spattered facade hid another persona—the urbane Jim Osterberg, who was disconcertingly reminiscent of Jimmy Stewart.”
― Paul Trynka, David Bowie: Starman

“David’s charm, which he’d learned to focus with dazzling effectiveness. He’d take words out of his companion’s sentences and repeat them, as if they had crystallized thoughts in his own mind; when bumping into someone again, he’d act as if he’d been barely able to function in the intervening minutes. Sometimes, talking to him, the objects of his attention would experience that giddy, tingly feeling you get when you’re in love.”
― Paul Trynka, David Bowie: Starman

“One evening Bowie vented his frustration, says Pitt, by telling him, “I’m going to write some Top Ten rubbish,” then proceeded to write a song that was neither. “Let Me Sleep Beside You” would be his first collaboration with Tony Visconti, the producer with whom he’s most associated; the finest song Bowie had written to that point, it also became the cause of his biggest artistic setback.”
― Paul Trynka, David Bowie: Starman

“The album is still a treasured possession and a source of pride that “not only was I to cover [a] Velvets’ song before anyone else in the world, I actually did it before the album came out. Now that’s the essence of mod.” In forthcoming years, David Bowie would become the world’s best-known champion of the Velvets, but in 1967, his attempts to assimilate its narco-deadpan thuggery resulted in some of his most ludicrous music.”
― Paul Trynka, David Bowie: Starman

“David Bowie had grasped a fundamental truth: before you can be a genius, you have to seem like a genius.”
― Paul Trynka, David Bowie: Starman

“He wouldn’t be talking about the weather or the latest Who single; he was simply off in his own world.” This man-child blend of escapism and hard-nosed careerism was intriguing; there were constant flights of fantasy and obsessions that his friends were drawn into. In essence, this seemed to be a mind-control technique, used to blot out the everyday details of life in Bromley. In a different person, such escapism and daydreaming would have been the marks of an ineffectual Walter Mitty character—but David labored to turn his fantasies into reality, spending long hours working on arrangements and planning the next steps in his career.”
― Paul Trynka, David Bowie: Starman

“David was open about the claustrophobia of living with his mother and father. Claustrophobia also led to the rapid turnover of people with whom he worked; the moment they started making demands or seeing themselves as permanent fixtures, David started seeing them as part of the dullness and convention that oppressed him. As Dek Fearnley, the man closest to David in 1966, observed, even at the time, “He wanted to get away from home. And he wanted to get away from being in a band in exactly the same way, if that makes sense.”
― Paul Trynka, David Bowie: Starman

“Lower Third demoed “The London Boys,” which they considered a standout song, but Hatch and Pye turned it down at their weekly sales meeting. According to Hatch, the main reason was not the downbeat subject matter or the references to pill popping but that “it takes too long to get going. It would never make a single.” Its replacement was far more concise, with a simple three-chord chorus once again lifted shamelessly from “Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere.” But while “Can’t Help Thinking about Me” thieves exactly the same three-chord trick as “You’ve Got a Habit of Leaving,” it makes far better use of it, with that punchy chorus allied with a subtle verse whose minor-key chords perfectly match the foreboding lines of a “question time that says I brought dishonor.”
― Paul Trynka, David Bowie: Starman

“Despite such setbacks, Bowie’s brief career as a mod was crucial, for the youth movement established all the essential principles with which he outraged Britain in 1972. In most respects, glam was modernism pushed to the max, and it’s no coincidence that the founding troika of glam—Bowie, Bolan, and Bryan Ferry—were all definitive mods (the only difference in philosophy was that the mod ideal was exclusive, aimed only at peers, whereas glam was designed to be publicized—knowingly pimped, with an ironic giggle).”
― Paul Trynka, David Bowie: Starman

“A little clunky in places—which only added to its charm—“The London Boys” was an anthem for a new generation of kids, an obvious ancestor of Bowie epics like “Lady Stardust” and “All the Young Dudes”: a celebration of otherness, right down to the clothing, the hint of homoeroticism, and the evocation of Judy Garland in its “too late now, ’cos you’re on the run” climax. Its combination of world-weariness and naïveté embodies the persona that David would inhabit for a decade or more: a man-child—a strangely calm and mature youth, and a waiflike, childishly earnest adult. In future years, David Bowie’s androgyny would be widely—and justifiably—celebrated, but this man-child aura was an important part of his personal, often devastating charm.”
― Paul Trynka, David Bowie: Starman

“A little clunky in places—which only added to its charm—“The London Boys” was an anthem for a new generation of kids, an obvious ancestor of Bowie epics like “Lady Stardust” and “All the Young Dudes”: a celebration of otherness, right down to the clothing, the hint of homoeroticism, and the evocation of Judy Garland in its “too late now, ’cos you’re on the run” climax. Its combination of world-weariness and naïveté embodies the persona that David would inhabit for a decade or more: a man-child—a strangely calm and mature youth, and a waiflike, childishly earnest adult.”
― Paul Trynka, David Bowie: Starman

“David always pronounced the name to rhyme with Snowy, Tintin’s faithful terrier, but his northern colleagues, like Mick Ronson, pronounced the Bow part to rhyme with plow.”
― Paul Trynka, David Bowie: Starman

“Wayne? When I’m famous I’m not gonna speak to anybody—not even the band.’ It was a strange thing to say—it stuck in my head.” Only then did he reflect how David was always “friendly. But I suppose he was never really giving much away.”
― Paul Trynka, David Bowie: Starman

“as many people were, he was attracted to David’s “energy,” the way he kept coming up with ideas. Whereas George Underwood would get depressed by setbacks, David seemed untouched by them; the fleeting taste of success he’d enjoyed so far simply fed his appetite for more. Today, he points out how such setbacks “never, ever” made him feel pessimistic, “because I still liked the process. I liked writing and recording—it was a lot of fun for a kid. I might have had moments of, ‘God, I don’t think anything is ever going to happen for me.’ But I would bounce up pretty fast.”
― Paul Trynka, David Bowie: Starman

“That fateful year, David Jones sashayed confidently into the epicenter of swinging London, hanging out with the scene’s hippest stars, participating in the shag-tastic promiscuity, convincing many he had more right to be there than they had. Within a year, he had become a leading face in the scene, distinguished in every respect except one—his music. The nerve with which the seventeen-year-old engineered his next career”
― Paul Trynka, David Bowie: Starman

“For George, being in a band was a passion, one to be shared with his friends. Discovering that David had an entirely different agenda was a shock. Just as striking was how unapologetic George’s bandmate was—indeed, there was a kind of purity about his attitude; David’s selfishness was cheerful, instinctive, almost childlike in its lack of malevolence. George was one of the first, but not the last, to hear what would become a guiding philosophy: “Numero uno, mate!”
― Paul Trynka, David Bowie: Starman

“therapy-speak, for in real life—chatting up girls, greeting a roomful of strangers, and walking into a recording studio—he had confidence that was unshakable. In later years he’d learn to be more subtle, offsetting this confidence with a charming, flirtatious bashfulness, but the seventeen-year-old David Jones seemed almost ruthless in his self-promotion. Enthusiastic, receptive, with an often brilliant sense of deadpan humor, he was also, say observers like Les Conn, “brash.” “He was sure he was going to be big. But the charm came later as he got more success.”
― Paul Trynka, David Bowie: Starman

“Before sending the letter, David showed it to George—who protested. “His dad helped him concoct the letter—and it was concocted in that it said things like that famous quote ‘Brian Epstein’s got the Beatles and you should have us.’ ” Undeterred, David assured him, “Don’t worry. It will be all right.” His instincts were on the money. Bloom, amused by the youngster’s chutzpah, passed the letter on to Les Conn, a friend from the Jewish scene in Stamford Hill. Within a couple of days, a telegram arrived at David’s house instructing him to call Conn’s Temple Bar number.”
― Paul Trynka, David Bowie: Starman

“There was the conventional generation gap between father and son—one familiar to many of David’s friends, several of whom had absent or dead fathers—yet Haywood’s youthful obsession with the entertainment world had not been entirely extinguished. Hence it was Haywood and David who, in January of 1964, came up with a “concocted” sales pitch for David’s new band. Shameless, “over the top,” according to George Underwood, Haywood and David’s joint concoction would kick off David’s career.”
― Paul Trynka, David Bowie: Starman

“Bass was probably the King Bees’ closest follower, hanging out with them at Wimpy bars, coffee shops, parties, and gigs. She knew David well; he was likable, cheerful, enthusiastic, but almost bland and boring in his single-mindedness: “All he wanted to do was practice, and listen to tapes or records that he’d got hold of. That was his life. Everybody regarded themselves as an expert in music—but he really was. What made him different was he would pass a party, or anything, up if there was something he needed to do for his music. For the other kids, that was inconceivable.”
― Paul Trynka, David Bowie: Starman

“El sistema de las escuelas de arte constituyó la base del empuje que el Reino Unido tendría en el futuro en el mundo del arte, la publicidad, el sector editorial, el cine y la moda.”
― Paul Trynka, David Bowie. Starman (Trayectos A contratiempo)