John Lennon told David Bowie his three rules for songwriting
In 1974, David Bowie was fresh off his reign as the glam-rock’s biggest act. After his breakthrough success that began with Ziggy Stardust and continued through Diamond Dogs, he was about to make a turn toward soul and funk with his next album, Young Americans.
Despite his success, he could still be in awe of his idols. When the opportunity to meet John Lennon arose that year, Bowie was beside himself. Like millions of teens in the 1960s, he had been a Beatles fan. His own career began to take off in the mid 1960s, during which time he flirted with influences ranging from the Rolling Stones to the Who to Syd Barrett’s Pink Floyd. But while Bowie never dabbled in the Beatles’ style of pop, but he was enamored of the group, and John Lennon in particular.
“Oh hell, he was one of the major influences on my musical life,” Bowie said in an interview recorded in the 1980s. “I mean, I just thought he was the very best of what could be done with rock and roll, and also ideas. “I felt such kin to him in as much as that he would rifle the avant-garde and look for ideas that were so on the outside, on the periphery of what was the mainstream — and then apply them in a functional manner to something that was considered populist and make it work. He would take the most odd idea and make it work for the masses.
“And I thought that was just so admirable. I mean, that was like making artwork for the people and not sort of having it as an elitist thing. There was just so much about him that I admired. He was tremendous, you know?”
By 1974, Bowie had moved to New York, the same city to which Lennon had emigrated in 1971. It was perhaps inevitable the two would meet. It happened soon after at a party given by actress Elizabeth Taylor. All the latest guitar news, interviews, lessons, reviews, deals and more, direct to your inbox!
“I think we were polite with each other, in that kind of older-younger way,” Bowie recalled of their meeting. As his longtime producer and friend Tony Visconti revealed in a 2021 interview with BBC Radio 4, Bowie was intimidated by the former Beatle.
“He was terrified of meeting John Lennon,” he recalled. When shortly after the party Lennon scheduled a visit to Bowie, the singer insisted Visconti come along “to buffer the situation.”
Source: guitarplayer.com/Elizabeth Swann
