Goswami and Basnet

Creative Process of David Bowie

A Research Paper

Mayukh Goswami & Subigya Basnet

Professor DeAngela Duff

Ideation & Prototyping, Spring 2017

4.3.2017
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1.0 Introduction

David Bowie has, in turn, fascinated and confounded both his critics and fans alike. His immense body of

work, spanning five decades, serves as a benchmark for an artist who hasnt only achieved commercial

success, but has stayed ahead of the curve in his time in experimenting with artistic aesthetics. Because of

his towering presence, it is tempting to analyze his influence on popular culture - something which is

significant. However, through this paper, we hope to explore the factors and processes which enabled,

almost made it compulsive for him to make his art.

1.1 Who is David Bowie

David Robert Jones was a Brixton boy from South London. He spent a significant part of his late teens and

early twenties discovering himself as an artist and this remained true for most of his life creating music and

art. This was why we get so many different versions of Bowie, making it kind of hard to figure out who he

really is. However, this is not a question that we will try to answer. We can just try and connect the dots

between his actions and performances to extrapolate and learn from his life. Indeed, Bowies message as

we shall see, come from a highly personal space and form a Rorschach of interpretations that can fit most

shoes.

To explore Bowies process, we will analyze his work and life in four parts: Inspiration, Techniques,

Isolation and Personal

2.0 Inspiration

2.1 Early Career

Bowies early career was no different from how most musicians started theirs. He failed to achieve

commercial success for the longest time, his first two albums being poorly received. There was a point in

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time when he almost gave up on music, believing himself to be finished in the industry. The tale hangs in

the way Bowie turned things around by how he brought his inspirations together in a way, at once cohesive

and yet very different from how musicians approach their work.

Bowies familiarity with theatre formed the primary lens through which he looked at art and performance.

He had cycled through five different bands between 1963 and 1967, dabbling with different sounds within

folk and blues spectrum. Part of six album releases between the time, one of which was his debut album,

none of them charted and were subsequently ignored.

Its interesting to analyze this part of Bowies career as it came to define everything he would not be. First

of all, one could see him trying to find his own niche as an artist and yet, through the mid-sixties Bowie

was found hopping through different existing bands. His collaboration or participation in these bands never

last for more than one or two releases and the reason for separation is usually cited as conflicting creative

vision. Its only poetic that his single with the Lower Thirds was Youve got a habit of leaving.

2.1.1 Bowies Early Music

While much of his pre-Space Oddity era music is ignored, one can see what influenced him in music. His

sound, at the time, was similar to psychedelic era artists such as Donovan and the Rolling Stones. He, with

the Riot Squad, had covered Velvet Underground, which along with naked homage to Andy Warhol and

Lou Reed through Warhol and Queen Bitch shows the high regard he had for what was at the time,

fringe New York music.

2.2 Bowie - intermediate phase

2.2.1 Acting

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By 1967, one couldnt possibly fault Bowie for believing that his attempt to break into music scene was

permanently put to rest. This could be seen in the lack of any releases from him over two years. He sought

out, with mixed results, acting work in television advertisements and worked odd jobs.

However, this would arguably be the most influential time in his life in developing his idea of himself as

an artist performer. The prime mover of his thoughts was Lindsay Kemp, a London actor-performer who

was closely associated with the Avant Garde theatre scene at the time. Kemp was the one who had sparked

Bowies interest in setting up a persona, seeing his show as a performance rather than as a pure musical

delivery. He even appeared in a BBC play The Pistol Shot as a dancer, choreographed by Kemp.

Kemp would also finance Bowies first movie Love you till Tuesday, a film primarily meant to showcase

his talent in music. However, the film would be shelved until 1984, when Bowies fame would mean that

such memorabilia were highly prized. This film was significant in that it had an early version of Space

Oddity which Bowie hadnt released at the time.

2.2.2 Cinema, Theatrics and Current Affairs

When he was 17, Bowie, then known as Davy Jones, formed the Society of Prevention of Cruelty to Men

with Long Hair. It was, of course, a publicity stunt and gives a hint at the way Bowie, and his managers,

sought to use theatrics to capture the public gaze.

Space Oddity was released five days before the launch of the first Apollo mission. It was an immediate

success and topped the charts, making Bowie a success as a solo artist. This song and its themes were

inspired by the space race of the time, stoked by movies such as 2001: A Space Odyssey. The song,

borrowing elements from Atomic Age and Space futurism, managed to capture the zeitgeist. One cannot

miss the commercial value of the release timing and it speaks to Bowies acumen as a person who can read

the mood of the generation. Of course, his detractors use this as a prime example of Bowies

commercialization of art.

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2.2.3 Constellation of Ideas

As Ziggy Stardust, Bowie had extensively toured the US and his travels brought him in contact with

Warhols Factory and Velvet Underground - both of which formed a significant part of his inspiration. He

formed the backing vocal for Lou Reeds Transformer and wrote songs as explicit homage to both Andy

Warhol and Lou Reed.

The American music scene wasnt something new to Bowie. His work with Folk music was inspired by

Dylan and he was introduced to music itself through the works of Little Richard. His idea of Ziggy Stardust

itself was conceived as an amalgamation of Iggy Pop and Lou Reed.

2.3 Pre-Spiders from Mars

This period also marked his move away from what had been his primary repertoire of sound - Blues. His

collaboration with Mary Finnegan and Hermione Farthingale, allowed him to explore a more rock and roll

sound. It was his time with Farthingale that he started working on one of his signal pieces, Space Oddity.

His dabbling with Arts Lab movement and subsequent formation of The Hype was Bowie on his way to

developing his concept behind The Spiders from Mars. The Hype didnt work out as it was, and was

deconceptualized as a supporting act for David Bowie. The failure of the Hype notwithstanding, it began

the collaboration of Bowie and the guitarist Mick Ron son who would be influential in his contribution to

Bowies persona as Ziggy Stardust.

It is while playing as part of the Hype that Bowie realized that he found his lyrical voice much easily as

part of a persona rather than himself, thereby setting the tone of his career in the following decade.

3.0 Technique

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3.1 Cut up technique

In his desire to never settle into one kind of a sound, Bowie experimented with different kinds of style and

methods. He borrowed heavily from William Burroughs cut up technique, not because he was out of ideas

but because he wanted to go beyond the ideas and themes that he was comfortable with.

In 1997, he worked with a programmer to create a software called Verbasizer which was a digital

interpretation of Burroughs technique. It is to Bowies credit that he was extending his method of making

art to the technology that was emerging at the time.

Bowie always wrestled against the tag of a musician because he never saw himself as one. He thought of

himself as an artist-performer who used music as a tool to express himself. He himself was a prolific painter,

turning out myriads of post impressionistic works that he mostly sold for charity. For him, painting was a

means to give a canvas to the visual parts of himself and also a way to solve a music related problem

visually. Starting from the early 90s, Bowie used painting as an effective visual tool to search for the missing

pieces of his new musical creations, which helped him to further his creative horizon in the kind of music

he wrote and produced.

4.0 Isolation

Bowie was essentially a loner. He mixed with eclectic crowds and sought to make their ideas his own. He

would generally dissociate himself from people from whom he didnt feel he could gain something.

Similarly, his process of making art was intensely private and would spend a long time by himself and

travelling to new places, working on new materials.

It would be wrong to avoid mentioning the role drugs played in his life. The period between 1973 and 1976

was marred with drug abuse and visible physical deterioration. However, it was also a highly productive

time for him in terms of the work that he was creating.

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According to Bowie, he used drugs as a means to isolate himself for the rest of the world; sort of as a way

to create an entire world inside his head. However, his cocaine addiction was to the detriment of his mental

faculties and private life and he later admitted that it was a black hole in his life which he was glad to get

out of.

His isolation was not purely through drugs. He involved himself in art practices which he was not

comfortable with. He picked up painting, learning to perform with electronic music, working in films and

theatres and so on. He kept putting himself in a beginners mind space so that he doesnt get comfortable

and make the same kind of music over and over again.

On the topic is isolation, Bowie was particular about keeping his public personas and private life separate.

Not only was he intensely private but even as an artist, it was easier for him to find his voice as one of his

personas rather than as himself. When he created Ziggy Stardust, he kept his persona both on and off the

stage. He thought of himself as a rigid automaton in real life, but as Ziggy he was more confident and free.

However, he was forced to kill off that persona when it started to dominate his personal life.

4.1 Bowies personal life

The public generally found Bowie highly protective of his personal life and it was only in snatches in

interviews that one finds hints of his private experiences that form the foundation of him as an artist.

4.1 Brothers suicide

The Jones family had a history of schizophrenia. Bowies mother, Margaret, suffered from psychosis, which

led to an unstable family life. Terry Jones, Bowies elder half-brother, a man instrumental in his

transformation from David Jones to David Bowie, suffered from a similar vein of paranoid schizophrenia

and extreme psychosis. All of this could be traced from his Margaret, whose family had that history and

from the emotional and physical abuse he suffered from her and Bowies father, John Jones. However, the

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abuse he suffered did not manifest itself in anger directed at his younger sibling. Bowie always remembered

Terry as a loving, protective brother who encouraged him to pursue music from an early age. Though Terry

spent most of his life in and out of mental asylum, the two brothers spent a lot of time together. All you

pretty things was a song inspired by Terry recounting to Bowie one of his psychotic episodes.

Unfortunately, in 1986, Terrys illness took a toll on him and he committed suicide by threw himself under

a train. This deeply affected Bowie and though he himself has avoided mentioning this in any of his

interviews, his frequent collaborators and friends such as Carlos Alomar have mentioned this as a time of

prolonged grieving for him. Terrys influence of Bowie is visible throughout his career. Many of his songs,

dealt with the fear of inheriting this mental condition on one hand and concern for his brother on the other.

Prime example of such a mental monologue is of course The Man who Sold the World. This reaction to

Terry and his own rising fame, could be seen as a manifestation of Bowies survivors guilt.

Lennon

Bowie and Lennon had one thing in common - their love for fans. Bowie, being a performer, who interacted

with his audience through theatrics and extreme representation, is someone who tried to find himself in the

adoration of his fans. Lennon was not so far off, claiming that he and the Beatles were more popular than

Jesus.

The comparisons dont just end there. Both the artists have had a long-troubled relationships with their

respective managers and were united by the feeling of being victimized by the profit driven music industry.

It was through Lennons suggestion that Bowie decided to let go of his then manager, to have more control

over his music, a move which he felt allowed him to define himself as an artist. Bowie wrote Heroes and

Fame as an homage to Lennon.

So, one could see why Bowie was completely shattered when Lennon was killed by one of his fans. Of

course, Bowie looked up to Lennon and they were collaborating frequently around that time. But the

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assassination caused a more fundamental shift in Bowie. He was forced to renegotiate, internally, his

relationship with his fans. He was no longer the Bowie who existed primarily in his fans imagination, for

his fans imagination.

5.0 Conclusion

Thus, we have explored Bowie through the four lenses, to try and reach the literal and figurative tools that

he used to bring his version of art into this world. These four parts are not mutually exclusive, they dont

exist in a vacuum. His work shows a constant struggle and conversation between these parts, something

that is visible to his fans. After all, great works of art are born from great struggle within.

David Bowie defies any sort of labelling and his work spans many genres. He saw art not just in music, but

sought to use himself as a canvas to paint his thoughts. There are not many artist who could lay claim to

the idea that they themselves embody the art that they create. Bowie, of course is one of them.

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Works Cited

David Bowie - The Calm Before The Storm - 2012, YouTube,

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLE19-GImeYOCCQyyzsUdksJ9TfC4pwSWy

Bill Demain, David Bowie On Songwriting , Teamrock.com, http://teamrock.com/feature/2014-05-

28/david-bowie-on-songwriting

PBS Blank on Blank - David Bowie, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lFIDXXDsxAo

David Bowie Playboy Interview 1976 by Cameron Crowe

Random Ultra-Violence: Simon Critchley On David Bowie

David Bowie - Inspirations (1997), YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PJ0o5Y05wKs

David Bowie Interview on Dick Cavett - 1974, YouTube,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSSf3k4UU64

David Bowie Explains Ziggy Stardust, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81H5PT7ANjc:

Oliver James, The cruel grandmother, shamed mother and psychotic half-brother who shaped David
Bowie's life and work, LifeStyle Men, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/the-filter/the-cruel-grandmother-
shamed-mother-and-psychotic-half-brother-w/

University of California, First Person: Reflections from a UCLA David Bowie Scholar, Medium,
https://medium.com/@UofCalifornia/first-person-reflections-from-a-ucla-david-bowie-scholar-762a00f23c3

David Bowie Introduction Essay, eNotes, https://www.enotes.com/topics/david-bowie

Daniela Faerber, Tranquility can become Disaster. David Bowie as a Modern Trickster, Grin,
http://www.grin.com/en/e-book/308365/tranquility-can-become-disaster-david-bowie-as-a-modern-
trickster

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