Speaker 1: Off the record is a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: What was that? Was that? A falling body? David Bowie
Speaker 1: was sure he'd seen a body fall from the sky,
Speaker 1: sailing downwards past the picture window of his Hollywood home.
Speaker 1: He went to look, and it was gone, vanished. But
Speaker 1: it seems so real. So did the phantom voices that
Speaker 1: called to him from the intercom at the front gate.
Speaker 1: So too did the spirit that haunted a swimming pool,
Speaker 1: which manifested as a swirling vortex of bubbles. He was
Speaker 1: in touch with a practitioner of white magic, a so
Speaker 1: called good witch, to exercise the demons. This good which
Speaker 1: could probably handle a pool, but she was gonna need
Speaker 1: some serious backup if she was going to exercise the
Speaker 1: demons that plagued David's soul. He pulled the blind shut,
Speaker 1: desperate to block out the bright sun and the dark
Speaker 1: forces that lurked outside. Now his world was a dimly
Speaker 1: lit living room, made all the more tomb like by
Speaker 1: the unsettling Egyptian decor. Often the only light emanated from
Speaker 1: the film projector running loops of Nazi newsreels with alarming frequency.
Speaker 1: For extra spiritual protection, David drew pentagrams on the wall
Speaker 1: and lip black candles, tricks he'd gleaned from his growing
Speaker 1: library on the occult, He'd collected volumes of religious and
Speaker 1: mystic texts, including works on Tero, Kabbala, numerology, and Egyptology.
Speaker 1: His spirit was under assault, and this would help keep
Speaker 1: the enemies at day. Another enemy was sleep, which he
Speaker 1: ward it off with mounds of white powder. A few
Speaker 1: sniffs kept him awake, productive, vigilant, and safe. It was
Speaker 1: the spring of or maybe summer. Who's to tell really.
Speaker 1: For David, time passed and a breakneck blur as he
Speaker 1: stayed up for three or four days at a stretch.
Speaker 1: He was in town to make his feature film debut,
Speaker 1: or production delays left into his own devices. Often these
Speaker 1: devices were stable. The mix of sleep, deprivation and drugs
Speaker 1: drove him to a state that bordered on psychosis. He
Speaker 1: would remember a few specifics of this period in later years,
Speaker 1: just disturbing emotional impressions. Over the course of his day's
Speaker 1: long bouts of consciousness, his world would transform into, in
Speaker 1: his words, a bizarre nihilistic fantasy of oncoming doom, mythological characters,
Speaker 1: and imminent totalitarianism. The line between dream and reality was
Speaker 1: becoming impossible to define. Each hour he remained awake, a
Speaker 1: new enemy seemed to come for him. There were witches
Speaker 1: who were after his seamen, intent on using it to
Speaker 1: create a baby to sacrifice to Satan. Bowie kept a
Speaker 1: close watch on his bodily fluids, even storing bottles of
Speaker 1: his urine in the fridge. The CIA was interfering with
Speaker 1: his writings. The Manson family had proud these hills just
Speaker 1: a few years earlier, and their energy was still palpable.
Speaker 1: The perceived threats came even from his fellow musicians. Ever
Speaker 1: since a n s the altercation with Jimmy Page, David
Speaker 1: was sure that the led Zeppelin guitarists was conspiring with
Speaker 1: his coterie of black magic women to wish him ill
Speaker 1: the Rolling Stones. Meanwhile, we're taunting him with messages hidden
Speaker 1: in their albums Nazis Manson Satan. David felt surrounded by
Speaker 1: forces of evil, but to his friends, the real enemy
Speaker 1: was cocaine. Sigmund Freud had called it his magical substance.
Speaker 1: It pushed David further into the realms of magical thinking,
Speaker 1: which is looking awful lot like madness, and his reputation
Speaker 1: was taking a hit. One Music magazine described him in
Speaker 1: print as old vacuum cleaner nos but it wasn't a
Speaker 1: laughing matter. Cocaine had overtaken food as his most crucial sustenance.
Speaker 1: Blow milk and red peppers kept them alive, though just barely.
Speaker 1: His skeletal frame now weighed around ninety pounds. He'd overdosed
Speaker 1: on several occasions, and by his own admission, he could
Speaker 1: have easily died. Partiers like Keith Richards and Elton John
Speaker 1: seemed to so. It was the most destructive period of
Speaker 1: David Bowie's life, as he pushed himself far past the
Speaker 1: point of no return. Secluded in his mansion populated by
Speaker 1: a parade of dealers and parasites, he was beyond help,
Speaker 1: estranged from his family and old friends, and completely unmoored
Speaker 1: from everything that had kept him grounded. After years on
Speaker 1: the brink, he'd finally split snapped. He was a cracked
Speaker 1: actor lost in the long l a night. Hello, and
Speaker 1: welcome to Off the Record, the show that goes beyond
Speaker 1: the songs and into the hearts and minds of rock's
Speaker 1: greatest legends. I'm your host Jordan Runtug. This season explores
Speaker 1: the life or rather lives of David Bowie. Today's episode
Speaker 1: looks at Bowie's l a years a time when he
Speaker 1: battled as deepest Demons in the City of Angels. It
Speaker 1: was the high point of his career to date, but
Speaker 1: it was the low point of his life and nearly
Speaker 1: the end of it. Somehow, in the midst of this
Speaker 1: personal native, he pulled himself back from the edge and
Speaker 1: made an album that many consider a masterpiece. In January,
Speaker 1: David Bowie completed his very first number one single, and
Speaker 1: he had a beatle for backup. It was a twist
Speaker 1: of faith that even he couldn't have predicted. A decade earlier,
Speaker 1: David had attempted a feeble John Lennon impression on his
Speaker 1: first ever release, Liza Jane. Now he was in the
Speaker 1: studio with the man himself, hanging out, playing together, and
Speaker 1: even writing together. The resulting track was called, appropriately enough, Fame.
Speaker 1: Their burgeoning friendship had allowed the two to compare notes
Speaker 1: about their extraordinary lives. David was beginning to learn the
Speaker 1: hard truth that Lennon had arrived at years earlier. Being
Speaker 1: a rock star ain't all it cracked up to be.
Speaker 1: It's fitting that this meditation on the shallowness of show business.
Speaker 1: Notoriety would ultimately take David to the top of the
Speaker 1: American charts, but the achievement only underscored is growing dissatisfaction,
Speaker 1: outlined in the song. Carlos Alamar's relentless guitar riff endlessly
Speaker 1: swirling around the single chord evoked the monotony and claustrophobia
Speaker 1: of celebrity. The lyrics, which David wrote on the spot
Speaker 1: in just twenty minutes, were a snapshot of his life
Speaker 1: at his supposed peak of success, a litany of money,
Speaker 1: worries and insecurities. Fame takes you there where things are hollow,
Speaker 1: he sang, what you need, you have to borrow. This
Speaker 1: all led to one big question, why didn't David ever
Speaker 1: seem to have any money? Through his friendships with Mick Jagger,
Speaker 1: Elizabeth Taylor and John Lennon, he'd witnessed the lifestyles of
Speaker 1: the obscenely wealthy. These people had a states tax, shelters,
Speaker 1: fleets of cars, jewelry collections. David had none of that.
Speaker 1: He just sold out a residency at Radio City Music
Speaker 1: Hall and debuted his new single on national television. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he had the r O petty cash from his management
Speaker 1: offices just to buy a few records. Something didn't add up.
Speaker 1: He began to grow suspicious of his manager, Tony Defrees.
Speaker 1: The partnership had launched his career, but he became increasingly
Speaker 1: fearful that he had nothing monetary to show for it.
Speaker 1: He confided in John Lennon, who was still dealing with
Speaker 1: the legal quagmire of the Beatles split more than four
Speaker 1: years before. Managerial mishaps had played a pivotal role in
Speaker 1: driving the fab for apart, and it made John wise
Speaker 1: to the world of contracts. John advised his younger friend
Speaker 1: to take a closer look at what he got himself into.
Speaker 1: At the dawn of the decade, David and DeFries reunited
Speaker 1: by the shared goal of making David the biggest rock
Speaker 1: star on the planet, and they had more or less
Speaker 1: succeeded together from the start. De Frieze offered him a
Speaker 1: creative cocoon, taking care of all business and finance concerns.
Speaker 1: There is management company Maine Man. When David was effectively penniless,
Speaker 1: it was a pretty good deal. He didn't have to
Speaker 1: worry about rent or food. To Freeze made sure everything
Speaker 1: was covered, leaving him free to focus on his music.
Speaker 1: In a way, it was every artist's dream. But the
Speaker 1: campaign to launch David had come at a high cost,
Speaker 1: and to freeze intended to recoup his investment. He'd operated
Speaker 1: under the theory that to be a star, one had
Speaker 1: to look like a star, act like a star, and
Speaker 1: generally live like a star, a classic case of fake
Speaker 1: it till you make it. David was fine with this.
Speaker 1: He knew you had to spend money to make money.
Speaker 1: He just didn't realize that the money being spent was
Speaker 1: his own. The lavish expense accounts, the on call limos,
Speaker 1: the failings of bodyguards, the elegant offices, the hotel suites
Speaker 1: and room service, the whole big budget diamond dogs tore debacle,
Speaker 1: every gleeful, shameless excess of the whole manman managerial stable.
Speaker 1: David put the bill for all of it. What he
Speaker 1: didn't have on hand was taken as an advance against
Speaker 1: future earnings. At the present rate, he'd have to work
Speaker 1: the rest of his life just to break even. David
Speaker 1: had no idea, or so he'd claim. Like most artists,
Speaker 1: he had little interest in the fine print. Early in
Speaker 1: his career, he let his father manage every aspect of
Speaker 1: his finances, from bills to taxes and insurance. The Frieze
Speaker 1: was just another father figure, and he trusted him blindly
Speaker 1: for years. David just left him to it. De Freeze
Speaker 1: once handed a stack of contracts to a secretary, saying,
Speaker 1: take these to David. Don't worry, it won't take long.
Speaker 1: He'll sign anything. And it was true. I had my
Speaker 1: eyes on the Star Prize. David would later admit nothing
Speaker 1: else mattered. As a result, he was blissfully ignorant of
Speaker 1: his precarious financial situation. But by four he began the
Speaker 1: wonder allowed where his money was going. Why did the
Speaker 1: Freeze own multiple properties in Manhattan and a country estate
Speaker 1: in Connecticut, while he, the alleged Star made do with
Speaker 1: a single Crumby townhouse. It was rented. Just like everything
Speaker 1: else in his life, he didn't own anything. Yes, his
Speaker 1: reliance on cocaine had made him a little edgy, but
Speaker 1: surely something was badly wrong. DeFreeze, for his part, didn't
Speaker 1: appreciate the torrent of questions from his mercurial client. Besides,
Speaker 1: he had his own gripes with Bowie. Some of it
Speaker 1: could be chalked up to creative differences. David's ferret into
Speaker 1: R and B on his new, yet to be released
Speaker 1: album Young Americans had left the Frieze cold. Plus the
Speaker 1: abrupt abandonment of a quarter million dollar diamond dog stage
Speaker 1: set got under his skin. Even a big spender like
Speaker 1: DeFreeze had a shutter at the waist of it all.
Speaker 1: But the artistic disagreements were just the beginning. More than
Speaker 1: anything else, he disapproved of David's drug use. De Frieze
Speaker 1: barely even drank. By now Bowie was snorting lines in
Speaker 1: the middle of main man meetings, making communication all but impossible.
Speaker 1: De Frieze knew better than the talk to David when
Speaker 1: his eyes had that pecure earlier glimmer. To him, David
Speaker 1: was becoming increasingly unmanageable. To David, the Frieze was becoming
Speaker 1: increasingly useless. A collision seemed imminent. It occurred in July,
Speaker 1: as David was set to play a doubleheader at Madison
Speaker 1: Square Garden. De Frieze had taken David's wife Angie to
Speaker 1: task for spending too much on airfare in recent months.
Speaker 1: David had his own problems with Angie these days, but
Speaker 1: he didn't react well to this criticism of his spouse,
Speaker 1: even if their open relationship was on the rocks. Moreover,
Speaker 1: he was confused, while they had the penny pinch, surely
Speaker 1: they were doing well enough to cover airline fees. Annoyed
Speaker 1: and more than a little baffled, David Cold MainMan president
Speaker 1: Tony zenetted to his hotel suite for an uncharacteristically blunt
Speaker 1: discussion of company finances. It was the first time he'd
Speaker 1: ever really asked what was being done in his name.
Speaker 1: Sanetta's explanation left him shocked. From the start. David thought
Speaker 1: he and Defrieze has split everything down the middle as
Speaker 1: equal partners. He believed that he was a co owner
Speaker 1: of Maine Man, the company that controlled his music, his management,
Speaker 1: his life. The reality mapped out in his contracts was
Speaker 1: heartbreaking lee different. He owned no part of Maine Man.
Speaker 1: He was an employee of DeFreeze, entitled of the profits
Speaker 1: after expenses, expenses like tours, offices, hotel suites, everything. In
Speaker 1: an instant, David realized that the business empire he strove
Speaker 1: the build didn't belong to him. It was a mirage.
Speaker 1: After a few moments of denial, he gasped, did I
Speaker 1: work this hard to have nothing. From then on it
Speaker 1: was over between him and Defrieze. David had no interest
Speaker 1: in changing the terms of his deal. He simply wanted out.
Speaker 1: David's assistant and right hand woman, Coco Schwab, found the
Speaker 1: a lawyer named Michael Lippman, and in January of nine
Speaker 1: five he began proceedings to sever all ties with MainMan
Speaker 1: and DeFreeze. Lawyers shuttle between rooms in an l A
Speaker 1: hotel for forty eight continuous hours before a settlement was
Speaker 1: reached to Freeze emerged the clear Victor may Man would
Speaker 1: receive half of all profits on all albums David had
Speaker 1: made under their management forever. This included classics like Hunky Dory,
Speaker 1: Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin, Saying, and Diamond Dogs. Defriese would also
Speaker 1: receive a sizeable percentage of David's income through throughout the
Speaker 1: long shadowy history of music management deals, these terms were
Speaker 1: unusually favorable for an ex manager. Their partnership had begun
Speaker 1: with Bowie and Tears desperate to leave. As former manager
Speaker 1: Ken Pitt now that was how their union ended. David
Speaker 1: broke down at the meeting as millions of his future
Speaker 1: earnings were surrendered. He was escorted from the room and
Speaker 1: what some believed was a state of clinical shock. For
Speaker 1: days after, anguished cries could be heard coming from the
Speaker 1: direction of his bedroom. He tried to take a zen
Speaker 1: approach to the whole man man a fair later, saying
Speaker 1: I certainly wouldn't have achieved that degree of notoriety without
Speaker 1: all that nonsense going on. I guess I'm thankful for
Speaker 1: that period. In a way, he was free, but he
Speaker 1: was alone. Some changes were made to preserve the trickle
Speaker 1: of money he had coming through. He moved out of
Speaker 1: the two bedroom suite at the Pierre Hotel, where he'd
Speaker 1: run up twenty dollars worth the room service in a
Speaker 1: single month, and into a rented brownstone in New York's
Speaker 1: Chelsea neighborhood. David barely bothered to furnish the place, and
Speaker 1: the spartan accommodations left visitors feeling claustrophobic and depressed. David's
Speaker 1: difficult financial position forced him to cancel the small allowance
Speaker 1: that he had been paying to his mother Peggy back
Speaker 1: home in England. The relationship wasn't exactly warm at the
Speaker 1: best of times, and now Peg he was furious that
Speaker 1: her boyd cut her off. She took her complaints to
Speaker 1: the press, calling David a terrible hypocrite. David Cooley informed
Speaker 1: her that if she ever repeated the stunt, she would
Speaker 1: never see him or his money ever again. He reinstated
Speaker 1: her allowance and even sent her a gold records and awards.
Speaker 1: She set up a virtual shrine to David in her apartment,
Speaker 1: but she seldom saw her son in the flesh for
Speaker 1: much of the decade. He'd maintained his distance. After touring
Speaker 1: NonStop for almost three years, David was rarely seen for
Speaker 1: most of nineteen That March, he made one of his
Speaker 1: only major appearances, presenting the Best Female R and B
Speaker 1: Award at the Grammys in New York. Clad in an
Speaker 1: elegant white tie tucks, he looked amazing, every bit the
Speaker 1: classy show business idol, yet he was gripped by nerves. Beforehand.
Speaker 1: He confided in John Lennon, a fellow presenter and a
Speaker 1: fellow Englishman abroad, that he misunderstood in America, Yanks, David
Speaker 1: believed just didn't get him creatively. After addressing the Grammy's
Speaker 1: crowd with a very bowie like ladies, gentlemen and others,
Speaker 1: He handed the trophy to winner Aretha Franklin, who blurted out, Wow,
Speaker 1: this is so good. I could kiss David Bowie. She
Speaker 1: didn't mean it as a compliment, and David was deeply
Speaker 1: mortified by the line. He slunk off stage and into
Speaker 1: the arms of Lenin, who tried to cheer him up
Speaker 1: by planting a theatrical kiss on his cheek. See Dave
Speaker 1: Lennon teased, America loves you. The incident was indicative of
Speaker 1: a minor backlash that had set in, at least among
Speaker 1: his musical peers. He learned that Fay meant not only
Speaker 1: rubbing shoulders with fellow superstars, but ruffling the feathers of
Speaker 1: a few, and it hurt. At one party, David met
Speaker 1: Bob Dylan, who sniped, glam ROCKI isn't music before turning
Speaker 1: his back on him. The rejection stung. David responded by
Speaker 1: disappearing into the private quarters of his downtown brownstone and
Speaker 1: indulging in an increasingly vampiric existence. For most of the year,
Speaker 1: he'd retreat from the public eye and into himself. By
Speaker 1: the spring of nine, David Bowie was ingesting what a
Speaker 1: friend would refer to as enough cocaine to kill a horse.
Speaker 1: It had long since gone for being a tool to
Speaker 1: being a necessity required to maintain his energy. On the
Speaker 1: Diamond Dogs tour the prior year, he refused to go
Speaker 1: on stage without it, and there was always a roady
Speaker 1: groupier fan willing to keep him supplied. The gold topped
Speaker 1: cane he twirled during the show wasn't merely a prop,
Speaker 1: but sometimes necessary to hold up his frail frame. One
Speaker 1: night in Detroit, he accidentally spilled a baggy of white
Speaker 1: powder on his hotel room floor. Saying nothing, he dropped
Speaker 1: to the ground a big and huffing the rug. Cocaine
Speaker 1: was simply a part of his life. He thought nothing
Speaker 1: of openly snorting lines during dinner in front of girlfriend
Speaker 1: Avia Cherry's parents. At least on the road he had
Speaker 1: performances to burn off as chemically enhanced stenergy. But when
Speaker 1: the tour wrapped, he simply stowed in his house, foregoing
Speaker 1: sleep with the aid of medical grade Merrick cocaine stronger
Speaker 1: than anything he'd encountered in England. It was easily obtainable,
Speaker 1: and it kept me working. He would recall, I wasn't
Speaker 1: really an out on the town guy. I was much more. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's write ten different projects this week and make four
Speaker 1: or five sculptures. After several days awake, he started to hallucinate,
Speaker 1: spotting angels floating outside his window. The delusions came hard
Speaker 1: and fast. Even Mick Jagger, no stranger to elicit substances,
Speaker 1: grew worried as David started rambling about enemies bugging his
Speaker 1: phone or tailing his car. He spouted fears that the
Speaker 1: freeze was Hitler incarnate and on again off again friend
Speaker 1: lou Reid was inhabited by the spirit of a devil,
Speaker 1: and together they were out to destroy him. He became
Speaker 1: convinced that led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page, an enthusiastic student of
Speaker 1: legendary Satanist Alistair Crowley, also intended to do him harm.
Speaker 1: To ward them off, David embarked on what he would
Speaker 1: later refer to as his wayward spiritual search. He developed
Speaker 1: an all consuming interest in taro, astrology, numerology, and the Kabbalah,
Speaker 1: not to mention more fringe theories like black magic, prehistoric
Speaker 1: spacemen and the Third Reich's alleged search for the Holy Grail,
Speaker 1: and pre war Britain. All manner of psychic phenomenon was explored,
Speaker 1: and even the mundane took on supernatural significance. He insisted
Speaker 1: he possessed the power of telepathy, once urging a friend
Speaker 1: to concentrate on a five figure number. Amazingly, after a
Speaker 1: few minutes of focus, David guessed four of the five
Speaker 1: numbers in the sequence. Maybe he was onto something, after all.
Speaker 1: David was fairly open about his idiosyncratic interests. During an
Speaker 1: interview with American chat show host Dick Cavitt the prior December,
Speaker 1: he confused television viewers and Cavitt himself by discussing not
Speaker 1: his new single, but something called black Noise, a sound
Speaker 1: powerful enough to level buildings or even destroy an entire city.
Speaker 1: After several minutes of painfully stilted, semi comprehensible rambling, Cabot
Speaker 1: finally asked his guest, do you want to be understood?
Speaker 1: David replied, there's absolutely nothing to understand. A more worrisome
Speaker 1: profile appeared a month later in the form of a
Speaker 1: BBC television documentary. Young producer Alan Yentub initially planned to
Speaker 1: call his film The Collector, based on Bowie's description of
Speaker 1: himself as a collector of faces. Gestures and presences. But
Speaker 1: when they first met up to begin filming during the
Speaker 1: Diamond Docs tour the prior September, yent ub saw the
Speaker 1: troubling effects of the endlessly shifting personalities, not to mention
Speaker 1: the copious cope can use. He ultimately called the documentary
Speaker 1: Cracked Actor, after the Aladdin Sane song about the perils
Speaker 1: of fame. It was an appropriate title. The film presents
Speaker 1: Bowie as a man perpetually in motion, driven by a potent,
Speaker 1: toxic blend of ambition and fear, criss crossing America in
Speaker 1: search of an identity, having jettison Ziggy for Diamond Dogs
Speaker 1: and now this New Guys. As the soul singer of
Speaker 1: young Americans, Bowie seemed haunted and lost throughout the shoot.
Speaker 1: He was barely sleeping or eating, and looked fragile, aching, lee, sad,
Speaker 1: and at times scarcely human. Their late night interviews were
Speaker 1: obtuse and difficult to follow, with Bowie often speaking in
Speaker 1: riddles and referring to himself and the third person. He
Speaker 1: made repeated references to schizophrenia and claimed not to know
Speaker 1: quote whether I was writing the characters or the characters
Speaker 1: were writing me. The most memorable scenes and Cracked Actor
Speaker 1: take place in the back of Bowie's limousine. There is
Speaker 1: a nocturnal cruise through l A. The sound of a
Speaker 1: police siren in the distance sends Bowie into a paranoid panic.
Speaker 1: Is there anything behind us? He asks anxiously. Then he
Speaker 1: sniffs a sniff all too familiar to anyone in the
Speaker 1: entertainment scene of the seventies. There's an underlying unease here,
Speaker 1: he tells you, trubs camera. You can feel it in
Speaker 1: every avenue. It's very calm, and it's a kind of
Speaker 1: superficial calmness that they've developed to underplay the fact that
Speaker 1: there's a lot of high pressure here. Later, while driving
Speaker 1: through the desert, yentabasques David how he's absorbed the American
Speaker 1: culture that surrounds him. David responds by pointing to a
Speaker 1: fly who had come to rest and his ever present
Speaker 1: bottle of milk. He's a foreign body and he's getting
Speaker 1: a lot of milk, David says of the insect. That's
Speaker 1: how I feel a foreign body. For all of David's success,
Speaker 1: he still felt like the perpetual outsider. Cracked Actor was
Speaker 1: the most thorough portrait of David to date. It also
Speaker 1: offered David the unique experience of viewing himself from the outside,
Speaker 1: just like his audience. Bowie later told Yenub that he
Speaker 1: watched the film again and again because, in his words,
Speaker 1: he told the truth. What he saw captivated him and
Speaker 1: horrified him. His debilitating cocaine addiction is on full display
Speaker 1: edging him towards a precipitous mental decline. He looked awful,
Speaker 1: waxy and emaciated. Cracked Actor is the defining document of
Speaker 1: his most difficult period, and he would find it painful
Speaker 1: to watch. But for a group of Hollywood film executives,
Speaker 1: it was exactly what they were looking for. They were
Speaker 1: casting for English director Nicholas rogues latest film, a sci
Speaker 1: fi parable called The Man Who Fell to Earth. It's
Speaker 1: an allegorical tale of an extraterrestrial soul destroyed by all
Speaker 1: too human vices and frailties, power, greed, corruption, alcohol, and media.
Speaker 1: It's Senator Out, an alien visitor who had come to
Speaker 1: Earth to save his planet and his family, shielding his
Speaker 1: true identity with a human alter ego known as Thomas
Speaker 1: Jerome Newton. The endeavor initially made him rich and influential,
Speaker 1: then It left him spiritually depleted and addicted as he
Speaker 1: fell in with those who sought to cash in and
Speaker 1: take advantage. Any of this sounding familiar, the producers searched
Speaker 1: for their leading man had so far been fruitless. They
Speaker 1: kicked around established names like Peter O'Toole, but it didn't
Speaker 1: quite feel right. No, said Nick Rogue. I want someone weak, slender,
Speaker 1: and pale. I want them to look as if they
Speaker 1: have no bones. By chance, a casting agent caught a
Speaker 1: screening of Cracked actor. The shots of Bowie in the
Speaker 1: back of the limo, clinched it, gazing out the window,
Speaker 1: totally disconnected from the world outside, alone, isolated an alien.
Speaker 1: Bowie was initially wary when he was first approached for
Speaker 1: The Man Who Fell to Earth. He had been pitched
Speaker 1: piles of alien film gimmicky, ziggy stardus the movie type vehicles,
Speaker 1: but this one had a little more substance. He invited
Speaker 1: Rogue over to his apartment to discuss it further. The
Speaker 1: director arrived at nine thirty that night. David arrived at
Speaker 1: five thirty the next morning. After some brief apologies, David
Speaker 1: said he'd do the film, then headed directly for his bed.
Speaker 1: He admired rogues persistence. Moreover, he liked that Roguad directed
Speaker 1: his friendly rival Mick Jagger in the nineteen seventy film Performance.
Speaker 1: Bowie's sense of competition kicked in and he dove headlong
Speaker 1: into the role. And what a perfect role. It was.
Speaker 1: Estranged from reality on a daily basis, he could more
Speaker 1: or less just be himself. I was definitely living in
Speaker 1: two separate worlds at that time, he later admitted. My
Speaker 1: state of mind was quite fractured and fragmented. It was
Speaker 1: quite easy for me not to relate to well with
Speaker 1: those around me. The production brought him to l A,
Speaker 1: which remained his home base for the next year. He
Speaker 1: initially crashed at the home of his friend Deep Purple Basis,
Speaker 1: Glenn Hughes. It wasn't long until the pain and paranoia
Speaker 1: that gripped him on the East returned. Part of it
Speaker 1: was environmental then, as now, the city bore the psychic
Speaker 1: weight of incalculable crushed dreams. The hard working, heartbroken were
Speaker 1: taunted by the shameful excesses of the high flying few,
Speaker 1: who partied like the last days of Rome. Too much money,
Speaker 1: too much power, too many drugs, and they'd stabb you
Speaker 1: on the back to keep it. One wannabe singer turned
Speaker 1: the tables in the most terrifying way imaginable. His name
Speaker 1: is Charles Manson. In the summer of sixty he sent
Speaker 1: his band of young followers into the Hollywood Hills. The
Speaker 1: slaughter innocence a vengeful act of rage against the community
Speaker 1: who had shunned him. Pregnant actress Sharon Tate was murdered
Speaker 1: along with her friends inside her exclusive Bendedict Canyon home.
Speaker 1: The following day, they struck again, carving supermarket exit couldve
Speaker 1: Lena la Bianca and his wife Rosemary with their own
Speaker 1: kitchen forks and knives. From then on, whis Angelenos could
Speaker 1: never shake the sense that some vague, unnamed evil lurked
Speaker 1: in the Bucolic Hills, and every beautiful flower child was
Speaker 1: actually a brainwashed murderer. L A had always been a
Speaker 1: two faced town, but never before had the duplicity been
Speaker 1: so deadly or demonic. For David, the nightmare of six
Speaker 1: years earlier struck even closer to home. The La Biancas
Speaker 1: had been killed just a few doors down from the
Speaker 1: house where he stayed. For protection, he kept a stash
Speaker 1: of knives under his bed. All this to say, the
Speaker 1: vibes were bad, making matters worse. The production of the
Speaker 1: Man Who Fell the Earth was delayed, leaving Bowie with
Speaker 1: little ado for several months. So began with David would
Speaker 1: later describe as quote one of the worst periods of
Speaker 1: my life. At loose ends, he carried on much as
Speaker 1: he had in New York, holding up in Glen Hugh's
Speaker 1: house and disappearing into a blizzard of cocaine. As one
Speaker 1: friend would know, a common form of greeting around l
Speaker 1: A in this period was for someone to simply say
Speaker 1: hi and stick a silver spoon under your nose. Dealers,
Speaker 1: hustlers and other hangers on quickly sussed out Bowie's address,
Speaker 1: and they arrived with whole platefuls of the stuff. Despite
Speaker 1: its reputation as a party favor, cocaine is fundamentally in
Speaker 1: any social drug, and a cruel one at that. It
Speaker 1: provides energy and confidence, but it also eliminates the innate
Speaker 1: need to be liked. After a few tutes, you don't
Speaker 1: care if you upset people. Cocaine severs any link you
Speaker 1: have to another human being. David would later say, if
Speaker 1: you really want to lose all your friends and all
Speaker 1: your relationships that you ever held. Dear, that's the drug
Speaker 1: to do it with. He would describe himself in this
Speaker 1: era as numb and an ice man. Rather than go out,
Speaker 1: everything was brought in food, drugs, art supplies. David busied
Speaker 1: himself with new songs and other creative pursuits like paintings, sketches,
Speaker 1: and sculptures. He'd work obsessively on the clock for literally
Speaker 1: days on end. I hate sleep, he said at the time.
Speaker 1: I much prefer staying up just working all the time.
Speaker 1: It makes me so mad that we can't do anything
Speaker 1: about sleep or the common cold. The neurological effects of
Speaker 1: extreme sleep deprivation is almost indistinguishable from psychosis. After a
Speaker 1: few days awake, auditory and visual hallucinations become commonplace. So
Speaker 1: are paranoid delusions that others are plotting against you, and
Speaker 1: narcissistic notions that you're the cause of worldly and supernatural events.
Speaker 1: It's no exaggeration to say that David bo always spent
Speaker 1: much of nine in a state of self induced insanity.
Speaker 1: It had always been his greatest fear. He'd watch it
Speaker 1: happened to his beloved half brother, Terry, A vibrant life
Speaker 1: destroyed by mental illness. Now it had come for David,
Speaker 1: just like he knew it would. He would remember these
Speaker 1: days as quote the worst manic depression of my life.
Speaker 1: My psyche just fractured into pieces. I was hallucinating twenty
Speaker 1: four hours a day. I felt like I falling into
Speaker 1: the bowels of the earth. His body began to give way,
Speaker 1: or rather almost vanished completely. Always slender, he shrunked to
Speaker 1: pounds through a diet of coffee, Marlborough cigarettes, finally chopped
Speaker 1: red peppers, and cartons of milk. Coco Schwab tried desperately
Speaker 1: to swap out two for whole milk, anything for a
Speaker 1: little extra sustenance to balance out the pure pharmaceutical cocaine
Speaker 1: in his system. It was Coco who bore the brunt
Speaker 1: of his self abuse. Sometimes she'd find him lying on
Speaker 1: the floor and she told one of his coke mirrors
Speaker 1: under his nose the check if he was still breathing.
Speaker 1: He overdosed on several occasions, once saved from death by
Speaker 1: one quick thinking person to threw him in a bath
Speaker 1: to lower his blood pressure. Friends like Elton John and
Speaker 1: Keith Richard's, both in the throes of their own addictions.
Speaker 1: At the time, grew seriously concerned that he was going
Speaker 1: to die. Mick Ronson, David's one time musical soul brother
Speaker 1: and confidante, watched helpless Lee from Afar, voicing his fear
Speaker 1: and frustration in the press. I wish that Dave would
Speaker 1: get himself sorted out, Ronson said, he's so very confused.
Speaker 1: What he really needs is to have some good friends
Speaker 1: around him. He needs one person who won't bow to him.
Speaker 1: I could kick some sense into him. That's what he needs.
Speaker 1: But that wasn't what he got. Instead, his grip on
Speaker 1: reality became more and more tenuous as he drifted further
Speaker 1: into the world of metaphysical mystics. He spent his days
Speaker 1: and nights huddle up in a room, burning candles and
Speaker 1: chanting spells. His music had included the odd reference to occultism,
Speaker 1: dating back to Hunky Dory tracks like Oh You Pretty
Speaker 1: Things in Quicksand. But now he was locked in a
Speaker 1: battle for his very soul, which he believed was under siege.
Speaker 1: He poured over arcane books on witchcraft and magic, both
Speaker 1: the benign white and more sinister black varieties. The favorite
Speaker 1: guide was Psychic self defense, which promised to be a
Speaker 1: safeguard for protecting yourself against paranormal malevolence. The book's instructions
Speaker 1: to several connections was suspected originators of psychic malice struck
Speaker 1: a chord with the increasingly paranoid Bowie, who didn't need
Speaker 1: much encouragement to keep former friends at arm's length. He
Speaker 1: became convinced that his lawyer, Michael Lippman, was a mafioso
Speaker 1: and another associate, a CIA agent, sent a spy on him.
Speaker 1: He believed that Girlfriendnva Cherry was a vampire. She recalls
Speaker 1: seeing him burn a bracelet that had been given to
Speaker 1: him by another woman who we suspected of being a witch.
Speaker 1: Before long, Ava retired from the sorry scene. To safeguard
Speaker 1: his spirit, he began drawing protective pentagrams and other symbols
Speaker 1: on the walls and windows of Glen Hugh's home. More
Speaker 1: than mere security, some were gateways into different worlds and
Speaker 1: other dimensions. The shades were kept permanently drawn because, as
Speaker 1: David later recalled, he didn't want the l a sun
Speaker 1: spoiling the vibe of the eternal. Now, he often seemed
Speaker 1: to go into a trance becoming hyper focused on whatever
Speaker 1: was at hand. He'd spent days working on a song,
Speaker 1: only to realize that he had been endlessly rewriting the
Speaker 1: first four bars. Glenn Hughes would go days without seeing David,
Speaker 1: only to find him in the same place, wearing the
Speaker 1: same clothes and the same intense expression, rerunning the same
Speaker 1: silent German expressionist films or Nazi newsreels. His fascination with
Speaker 1: the Third Reich had intensified since reading The Spear of Destiny.
Speaker 1: The book explored Hitler's supposed obsession with occult powers in
Speaker 1: his search for divine artifacts like the Holy Grail and
Speaker 1: the lance that stabbed Jesus side. David found himself drawn
Speaker 1: to this need to possess the mythological link to God.
Speaker 1: He became interested in a form of astral photography called Killian,
Speaker 1: designed to capture the spiritual aura in addition to the
Speaker 1: physical body. While visiting the u c l A Department
Speaker 1: of Parapsychology to learn more about Killian, he stopped in
Speaker 1: to see his friend Iggy Pop, who was undergoing court
Speaker 1: mandated psychiatric evaluation after pushing his mind and body to
Speaker 1: the brink through drug abuse. David could have taken this
Speaker 1: as a warning sign from the universe to take it
Speaker 1: easy and clean up his act, but he didn't. Instead,
Speaker 1: he showed up and immediately offered Iggy some coke. I
Speaker 1: thought we should bring him some drugs because he probably
Speaker 1: hadn't had any for days, David would remember. Clearly, David
Speaker 1: wasn't getting the hint. Instead, he looked for patterns elsewhere,
Speaker 1: desperate to find order and deeper meaning, or some sign
Speaker 1: of preordained fate. He became convinced that the Rolling Stones
Speaker 1: were sending secret messages to him through their album covers.
Speaker 1: He began to study letters from friends, using small details
Speaker 1: like the number of lines, repeated words, or even the
Speaker 1: day it was sent to work out the date of
Speaker 1: his own death. Journalists requesting an interview were required to
Speaker 1: submit their zodiac sign an exact time of their birth.
Speaker 1: Once Bowie consulted a tarot deck, he would be in
Speaker 1: touch about whether or not the number is were right
Speaker 1: for a meeting. One of the few interviews he gave
Speaker 1: in this period was to Cameron Crow, Rolling Stones teenage
Speaker 1: whiz kid. Many of the most unsettling Bowie myths and
Speaker 1: snapshots from this erah, like the Black candles, falling phantom bodies,
Speaker 1: and stockpiling jars of his own urine can be traced
Speaker 1: to this profile. His uncomfortable preoccupation with Nazis is on
Speaker 1: full display as he compares his own on stage charisma
Speaker 1: ziggy start us to the fur. Everybody was convincing me
Speaker 1: I was a messiah, especially on that first American tour,
Speaker 1: he said, I got hopelessly lost in the fantasy. I
Speaker 1: could have been Hitler in England. Wouldn't have been very hard.
Speaker 1: I think I would have made a bloody good hitler.
Speaker 1: I'd be an excellent dictator, very eccentric and quite mad.
Speaker 1: That's summer. Bowie moved out of Glenn Hughes's path and
Speaker 1: into the home of his new manager and lawyer, Michael Lippman.
Speaker 1: If Lippmann thought he could rescue his client from the
Speaker 1: depths of his personal abyss, he was sorely my steak,
Speaker 1: and any suggestions threats are pleased for Bowie to lay
Speaker 1: off the blow were met with an irate don't tell
Speaker 1: me what to do. Before David beat a hasty retreat
Speaker 1: to his bedroom, where he could snort in private and
Speaker 1: chance spells to his heart's content. He was seldom seen
Speaker 1: without the large gold crucifix that Littman had given him.
Speaker 1: It came in handy for warding off the witches that
Speaker 1: David believed were attempting to steal a seamen to make
Speaker 1: a sacrificial child for the devil. A novel twist on
Speaker 1: the film, Rosemary's baby Angie, who was still living at
Speaker 1: their home in England with their son, Zoe, remembers receiving
Speaker 1: a terrified phone call from her husband saying he'd been
Speaker 1: kidnapped by a warlock and two witches. An alleged good
Speaker 1: witch was duly summoned from New York in order to
Speaker 1: remove the dreaded curse. The witch also succeeded in performing
Speaker 1: an exorcism of the new house Bowie rented after he
Speaker 1: wore out as welcome with the Littman's the Egyptian theme,
Speaker 1: the bode was great, except for the fact that the
Speaker 1: swimming pool was apparently haunted. He swore he'd seen bubbles
Speaker 1: and whirlpools the obvious work of Satan so the which
Speaker 1: did her thing healthfully, writing out a list of incantations
Speaker 1: for David just in case the Lord of Darkness decided
Speaker 1: to return and take a few cannonballs, Andie came to
Speaker 1: join David, and they lived together as a family with
Speaker 1: four year old Zoe. Despite sharing a roof, they mostly
Speaker 1: led separate lives on separate schedules, with very separate interests.
Speaker 1: Andrew recalls David sleeping until the afternoon and then spending
Speaker 1: most nights entertaining. In her words, two types of guests
Speaker 1: Rhodes delivering fat packages of the best Peruvian flake or
Speaker 1: semi famous show biz co cores. One frequent visitor was
Speaker 1: a costume designer named Ola Hudson, with whom he was
Speaker 1: seriously involved for a time. This was far out news
Speaker 1: to OLA's ten year old son, Saul, who once walked
Speaker 1: in on his mom and her rockstar boyfriend naked. Saul
Speaker 1: would achieve his own level of musical infamy by the
Speaker 1: time he reached adulthood, when he was better known as
Speaker 1: slash guitarists for the band Guns n Roses. He would
Speaker 1: always have vivid memories of Bowie swinging by his mother's house,
Speaker 1: often with Angie and Zoee and Toe. It was like
Speaker 1: watching an alien land in your backyard, he would later say.
Speaker 1: David would always have fond memories of putting the future
Speaker 1: guitar god to bed. David also played a more active
Speaker 1: role in his own son's life. Up until that point,
Speaker 1: he'd largely been so focused on the business of being
Speaker 1: David Bowie that he had been mostly absent in the
Speaker 1: toddler's world, to his increasing regret. David would later admit,
Speaker 1: I was around so unfrequently. I can't imagine when an
Speaker 1: abyss that caused granted David's reintroduction into Zoey's life at
Speaker 1: this particular moment brought with it a unique set of
Speaker 1: hazards as David wrestled for some sense of control over
Speaker 1: his life. My son see me through some of the
Speaker 1: most awful, depressing times when I was really an absolute
Speaker 1: abject agony over my emotional state, the heights of my
Speaker 1: drinking and drug doing. He's seen a lot. What ultimately
Speaker 1: saved David from himself was the production of The Man
Speaker 1: Who Fell to Earth, which finally began shooting that June.
Speaker 1: Ironically pretending to be an alien brought him back down
Speaker 1: to the concrete reality of being a human on Earth.
Speaker 1: He arrived on set so thin that the film's customers
Speaker 1: dressed him in little boy's clothes, but the change of
Speaker 1: pay seemed to suit him. He was only too eager
Speaker 1: to trade the Hollywood high life for the more rugged
Speaker 1: world of the ranch. The cowboys and their uncomplicated meat
Speaker 1: and potatoes lifestyle had a stabilizing effect on them. They're fascinating,
Speaker 1: David would say. They can look at a leaf and
Speaker 1: tell you what kind of tree it's from and where
Speaker 1: it grows. It's a different breed. When he wasn't required
Speaker 1: on set, he explored the countryside, hunting the clear desert
Speaker 1: skies for UFOs were descending into the bat infested Carl's
Speaker 1: Bad caverns. He found New Mexico to be so clean
Speaker 1: and pure. This is the way I like the rest
Speaker 1: of America to be, he'd say. Filming was perhaps the
Speaker 1: highlight of Bowie's pretty dismal n The shoot provided some
Speaker 1: semblance of structure to his previously open ended existence. He
Speaker 1: shunned cocaine in favor of no dos tablets, crushed up
Speaker 1: and snorted old habits. After all, even without the aid
Speaker 1: of Class A stimulants, he remained unusually productive creatively. In
Speaker 1: between takes, he could often be found in his trailer
Speaker 1: painting or reading one of the four hundred books that
Speaker 1: he cartered with him for the eleven weeks shoot. He
Speaker 1: also wrote prolifically, including pages for a proposed autobiography, provisionally
Speaker 1: titled The Return of the Thin White Duke. The fragments
Speaker 1: that have surface reveal a series of self mythologizing vignettes,
Speaker 1: providing a portrait of his own fragmented mind rather than
Speaker 1: a linear personal history. He also claimed to have written
Speaker 1: nine film scripts, with words accompanied by elaborate storyboard sketches.
Speaker 1: He told all who would listen that he wanted to
Speaker 1: chuck his rock star life for a career as a filmmaker.
Speaker 1: I've always been a screenwriter, he said at the time.
Speaker 1: My songs have just been practiced for scripts to bowie.
Speaker 1: The isolated themes of The Man Who Fell to Earth
Speaker 1: cut scarily close to the bone. My one snapshot memory
Speaker 1: of that film is not having to act. He later
Speaker 1: admitted he remained Thomas Jerome Newton long after the filming
Speaker 1: wrapped at the end of the summer. He left the
Speaker 1: set still wearing his wardrobe for the movie, which would
Speaker 1: become his permanent attire more or less over the next
Speaker 1: few months. He also kept the striking center parted red
Speaker 1: hair do Newton's air of loneliness and paranoia stuck with
Speaker 1: him too. He settled back into l A and back
Speaker 1: into his bad habits, and prepared to make a record
Speaker 1: that would be the definitive document of his descent into hell.
Speaker 1: When David Bowie completed filming for The Man Who Fell
Speaker 1: to Earth in September of he returned from New Mexico
Speaker 1: to l A, moving into the rented home him in
Speaker 1: bel Air that Coco Schwab had found for him. For weeks,
Speaker 1: it would service his creative laboratory as he composed music
Speaker 1: intended for the film's soundtrack. Inspired by German electro pioneers
Speaker 1: craft work, David's new music began to experiment with the
Speaker 1: computerized sounds of a arp odyssey since and Japanese drum machines,
Speaker 1: primitive by today's standards, but effective and highly evocative for
Speaker 1: the instrumentals. It seemed to suit the disembodied and disengaged
Speaker 1: mood of Bowie's character in the movie, and added an unsettling,
Speaker 1: coldly clinical edge to the atonal pieces, which has showed
Speaker 1: traditional song structure almost completely. It was unlike anything he'd
Speaker 1: ever written for any of his David Bowie guys, but
Speaker 1: ultimately his efforts weren't used for The Man Who Fell
Speaker 1: to Earth. The precise reasons why I have been disputed.
Speaker 1: Some reports claimed that Bowie demanded more money than the
Speaker 1: producers could afford. Others say Bowie felt snubbed upon learning
Speaker 1: that he was just one of several artists being considered
Speaker 1: to write music for the film, and he pulled out
Speaker 1: in a huff, But most likely director Nick Rogue simply
Speaker 1: felt that Bowie's offerings were inappropriate, too unconventional for the
Speaker 1: already pretty unconventional film. Instead, Rogue went with John Phillips
Speaker 1: of The Mamas and the Papas, who assembled a folk
Speaker 1: tinge soundtrack. Bowie was hurt by the whole debacle, but
Speaker 1: he wasn't gonna let his daring new pieces go to waste.
Speaker 1: The experience had reinvigorated his passion for songwriting, and he
Speaker 1: prepared to enter the studio to begin work on his
Speaker 1: first new album since completing Young Americans nine months earlier.
Speaker 1: He assembled a new band with guitarist Carlos Alamar as
Speaker 1: his trusty musical director, as well as a core crew
Speaker 1: of Dennis Davis on drums George Murray on bass Roy
Speaker 1: Bitten on piano and Earl Slick on guitar. Unable to
Speaker 1: secure his friend and longtime collaborator Tony Visconti at such
Speaker 1: short notice, David tapped Harry Maslin to co produce the
Speaker 1: ad hoc sessions. The result would be the album Station,
Speaker 1: the station they decided to record in l A, opting
Speaker 1: to work at Hollywood's Cherokee Studios. The brand new facility
Speaker 1: boasted a state of the art twenty four track tape machine,
Speaker 1: which offered Bowie imprecedented freedom to experiment on record. In
Speaker 1: addition to the top of the line equipment, Cherokee also
Speaker 1: offered something equally important, a loose, laid back environment. At
Speaker 1: a time when most recording studios still clung to a sterile,
Speaker 1: almost hospital like vibe, Cherokee was homing, with burning incense
Speaker 1: and Christmas lights constantly lit in the chill out lounge.
Speaker 1: David liked it so much that he more or less
Speaker 1: moved in. He worked for days at a stretch. At
Speaker 1: one point he even installed a bed in the studio.
Speaker 1: The room had no windows or clocks, and the concept
Speaker 1: of time began. The melt away. Engineers and studio staff
Speaker 1: would go home to sleep, only to return the next
Speaker 1: day to find David and his players unmoved from the
Speaker 1: night before, still working. Once after one marathon six hour session,
Speaker 1: David was some four until they had to clear out
Speaker 1: of the studio to make room for another band had
Speaker 1: booked a session. Rather than break, it was now nine am,
Speaker 1: after all, he simply steered his band across town to
Speaker 1: another studio, where they carried on work until midnight. It's
Speaker 1: worth noting that after the relative abstinence of the Man
Speaker 1: Who Fell to Earth shoot, David was back on cocaine
Speaker 1: in a big way. According to co producer Harry Maslin,
Speaker 1: he had a habit of laying out piles of white
Speaker 1: powder at various places in the studio, on the mixing console,
Speaker 1: on the piano, and the vocal booth. That way, he
Speaker 1: never had to go far to get another bump. Between
Speaker 1: the blow and the lack of sleep, it's not surprising
Speaker 1: that David claimed to remember almost nothing about the recording
Speaker 1: of Station The Station. In later years, he'd say that
Speaker 1: the only reason he knew was recorded in Los Angeles
Speaker 1: was because that was what he'd read. David had only
Speaker 1: one memory of the session, screaming the sound of guitar
Speaker 1: feedback that he wanted for the opening of the title track.
Speaker 1: Beyond that solitary glimpse, it was all blur. It was
Speaker 1: some of the most unusual, though undeniably creative sessions that
Speaker 1: he'd ever undertaken. In the four years since recording Ziggy Stardust,
Speaker 1: his working methods had completely altered. Gone were the days
Speaker 1: of arriving in the studio with the selection of pre written,
Speaker 1: fully rehearsed compositions. Instead, the songs were born from rough
Speaker 1: sketches that took shape in the studio. Now that he
Speaker 1: built up sufficient star power and was rid of Tony
Speaker 1: to freeze, he wasn't required to squeeze in recordings between
Speaker 1: stretches of tour dates. Now he could take his time.
Speaker 1: David could be more deliberate, considerate, and experimental. He could
Speaker 1: follow the wise words he was famous for dolling out
Speaker 1: to friends in this period. Do the contrary action, do
Speaker 1: something you're not used to, He'd tell them. Let's not
Speaker 1: make it comfortable, Let's make it uncomfortable. David was making
Speaker 1: things uncomfortable for himself and his sleep deprived band, but
Speaker 1: the results were astounding. As author Paul Trunko would observe.
Speaker 1: This was not an exercise and songwriting, It was sculpture
Speaker 1: carved out of sound. In the midst of his bold
Speaker 1: sonic exploration, David became acquainted with the overlord of the
Speaker 1: Old Guard, the chairman of the board himself, Frank Sinatra.
Speaker 1: Old Blue Eyes, dropped in at Cherokee Studios in October
Speaker 1: nine to record staff and other studio clients. Were prepped
Speaker 1: as if it were a state visit. Bowie was briefed
Speaker 1: to be on his best behavior, not to speak unless
Speaker 1: spoken to, and only refer to Frank as Mr. Sinatra,
Speaker 1: but there was no need for such fussiness. Hoboken's favorite
Speaker 1: son was a delight personable and funny, telling old jokes
Speaker 1: and road stories to the assorted staff and crew. He
Speaker 1: supposedly had no idea who David was, but they quickly
Speaker 1: hit it off, even getting dinner together at one of
Speaker 1: Sinatra's favorite Italian hole in the walls. Bowie played him
Speaker 1: a new song he'd recorded, a cover of the old
Speaker 1: Johnny Mathis Chestnut wind is the Wild. His skillful sincere
Speaker 1: take on the standards did Sinatra to a t. His
Speaker 1: enthusiasm for the tracks cemented Bowie's decision to include the
Speaker 1: offbeat choice on station to station. The first song David
Speaker 1: completed for his new project was inspired in part by
Speaker 1: another show business icon, Elvis Presley. It evolved early in
Speaker 1: the sessions when David banged out a two chord vamp
Speaker 1: on the piano. After he and the band fooled around
Speaker 1: with it for a time, they realized that it sounded
Speaker 1: a little too much like the early sixties R and
Speaker 1: B track on Broadway by the Drifters, So Carlos Alamar
Speaker 1: and Earl Slick worked their magic, weaving a funky, early
Speaker 1: Philly soul styled drift that transformed the piece completely. David
Speaker 1: went to the bathroom with a pad of paper and
Speaker 1: emerged minutes later with the lyrics to Golden Years. He
Speaker 1: reportedly first offered the song to Elvis himself, who was
Speaker 1: getting near the end of his sad decade long personal
Speaker 1: and professional slide, but the King rejected the song, so
Speaker 1: Bowie gave it a go himself. He nailed the duop
Speaker 1: flavored vocals and just one tape slipping in and Elvis
Speaker 1: like voice quiver just for fun. Both Angie Bowie and
Speaker 1: David's former girlfriend David Cherry have come Forward, saying that
Speaker 1: they were the angel of David's irrepressively optimistic love song,
Speaker 1: interesting considering the fact that both relationships were either dead
Speaker 1: or dying when David recorded the song. Though the new
Speaker 1: album was far from done, David's label r C A
Speaker 1: was eager for a follow up to his chart topping
Speaker 1: latest single, Fame. They rushed released Golden Years That Ball,
Speaker 1: which crashed into the top ten almost immediately. Bowie promoted
Speaker 1: the song with an appearance on Soul Train that November,
Speaker 1: becoming just the second white act to ever perform on
Speaker 1: the hit TV show Elton John's first Bowie's nerves got
Speaker 1: the better of him and he hit the ball a
Speaker 1: little too hard beforehand, leading the several flubbed takes. Host
Speaker 1: Don Cornelius took Bowie aside and had a fatherly word,
Speaker 1: reminding him how many other singers would give anything for
Speaker 1: the opportunity that he was currently blowing. When sessions for
Speaker 1: Station the Station wrapped in the last weeks of David
Speaker 1: had completed just six songs, but it was the most
Speaker 1: adventurous music he'd made to date. The centerpiece was the
Speaker 1: title track, a ten minute epic that broke just about
Speaker 1: every rule of conventional pop songcraft. The first minute consists
Speaker 1: solely of the sound of a passing steam train panning
Speaker 1: across the speaker, before the howl of Earl Slick's guitar
Speaker 1: feedback emerges from the haze, the perfect welcome to the
Speaker 1: sinister soundscape to come. The introduction is every childhood nightmare
Speaker 1: rolled into one. From the moment you hear Roy Bitten's
Speaker 1: ominous two note figure on a honky tonk piano, it's
Speaker 1: pretty clear this place is definitely haunted. The howling guitar
Speaker 1: shrieks pierced through like a maniacal laugh of an evil
Speaker 1: clown and a dilapidated fun house. George Murray's tight bass
Speaker 1: groove and Dennis Davis's drums barge in like the plotting
Speaker 1: footsteps of a demented zombie. It's offset by delicately Gray's
Speaker 1: guitar strings like individual hairs being raised on the back
Speaker 1: of one's neck. A fair ground or We're gonna peers
Speaker 1: out up nowhere and suddenly you're on a flaming carousel
Speaker 1: from hades, round and round and round. It goes locked
Speaker 1: and seemingly endless repetition. You want off, but there's no exit.
Speaker 1: Just when you think you've adjusted to this new and
Speaker 1: terrible reality, a pair of jarring, rapid fire time changes
Speaker 1: knock you off your feet. Sonically, it's all very interesting.
Speaker 1: The lockstep rhythm is indicative of David's growing interest in
Speaker 1: the motoric industrial sounds of German bands like Craftwork and Noi,
Speaker 1: blended with tricks glean from Philly soul and Detroit funk.
Speaker 1: So you aren't having these thoughts when you're listening to it.
Speaker 1: All you know is this music is coming to get you.
Speaker 1: It's more than three minutes, the length of most songs
Speaker 1: before David's voice can be heard. He's no longer Ziggy Stardust,
Speaker 1: or David the Soul Man, or even Thomas Jerome Newton. Instead,
Speaker 1: he's unveiling his latest persona, The Thin White Duke, a
Speaker 1: monstrous physical embodiment of paranoia and megalomania wrapped in the
Speaker 1: icy exterior that falls somewhere between a nineteen thirties European
Speaker 1: cabaret star and a nineteen fifties rat packer. Dapper yet deadly,
Speaker 1: the character has been alternately described as a mad aristocrat
Speaker 1: and amoral zombie, or an emotionless aryan superman. He was,
Speaker 1: Embowie's own words, a nasty character. Indeed, fans would get
Speaker 1: to know him better soon enough. The precise meaning of
Speaker 1: Station the Station is puzzled listeners for decades. Many have
Speaker 1: commented on the songs quasi religious overtones, picking apart the
Speaker 1: mishmash of references to Kabbala, occultism, and other esoteric philosophies
Speaker 1: and faiths. David himself would say that the title Station
Speaker 1: the Station refers not to the train sound effects, but
Speaker 1: the Christian stations of the Cross. However, the travel metaphor
Speaker 1: does seem to be an apt one, as David continued
Speaker 1: on his wayward spiritual search. Contrary to the lyrics, this
Speaker 1: does appear to be a side effect of the cocaine.
Speaker 1: Freud's magical substance had sent David on an express train
Speaker 1: to Hell. On some level, perhaps that was the intent.
Speaker 1: During the same period, Bowie outlined his interest in quote
Speaker 1: watching artists crack open a bit and seeing what they're
Speaker 1: really like inside. Presumably for this reason. He'd admired people
Speaker 1: like Iggy Pop, Lou Reid, Brian Wilson and Pink Floyd's
Speaker 1: Sid Barrett, and even the ziggy inspiration, Vince Taylor, men
Speaker 1: touched with fire, who had suffered for their music. Most
Speaker 1: of David's work had to this point come from imagination
Speaker 1: rather than a private torment. But during those long nights
Speaker 1: in l A and the Fall, David Bowie knowingly or
Speaker 1: unknowingly gamld his soul the probe for new artistic territory.
Speaker 1: Within just a few years, he looked back on much
Speaker 1: of what he said during the Station the Station era
Speaker 1: as quote, the incredibly insane mutterings of a very hurt,
Speaker 1: broken mentality. He cast his mind back to his half
Speaker 1: brother Terry, locked away in an institution for his schizophrenic visions.
Speaker 1: Now David was tortured by a similar horde of faces.
Speaker 1: They were with him on stage, in the studio, and
Speaker 1: in his home. I was definitely a fractured person, David
Speaker 1: would say, confounding myself with images and characters that I found.
Speaker 1: I was living with a combination of that in a
Speaker 1: year and a half of fairly hard drugs. I was
Speaker 1: being threatened by my own characters, feeling them coming in
Speaker 1: on me and grinning at me, saying we're going to
Speaker 1: take you over completely. I thought, this is it. Terry
Speaker 1: I'm just about to join you. Off the Record is
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio. The executive producers are
Speaker 1: Noel Brown and shan Ty Tone. The supervising producers are
Speaker 1: Taylor chicogn and Tristan McNeil. The show is written and
Speaker 1: hosted by me Jordan run Tug and edited, scored, and
Speaker 1: sound designed by Tristan McNeil. If you liked what you heard,
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