David Bowie
David Bowie
David Robert Jones, better known by his stage name David Bowie, was an English singer, songwriter and actor. He was a figure in popular music for over five decades, regarded by critics and musicians as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s. His career was marked by reinvention and visual presentation, his music and stagecraft significantly influencing popular music. During his lifetime, his record sales, estimated at 140 million worldwide, made him one of the world's best-selling music...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionRock Singer
Date of Birth8 January 1947
CityLondon, England
I don't make changes to confuse anyone. I'm just searching. That's what causes me to change. I'm just searching for myself.
Every time I've made a radical change it's helped me feel buoyant as an artist
The name Zahra was to have been lman's own name at birth, but a senior member of the family changed it to lman at the last minute.
Art was, seriously, the only thing I'd ever wanted to own. It has always been for me a stable nourishment. I use it. It can change the way that I feel in the mornings.
I change my mind a lot. I usually don't agree with what I say very much. I'm an awful liar.
...And these children that you spit on as they try to change their worlds, they are immune to your consultations, they're quite aware of what they're going through...
I feel confident imposing change on myself. It's a lot more fun progressing than looking back. That's why I need to throw curve balls.
When Brian and I came back together this time, we found that we'd gone through very similar psychological states during the course of the '80s.
I went to a middle-class school, but my background is working class. I got the best of both worlds, I saw both classes, so I have a pretty fair idea of how people live and why they do it.
I usually don't agree with what I say very much. I'm an awful liar.
I don't like talk and I don't like talkers. Like Ma Barker. That's what she always said, 'Ma Barker doesn't like talk and she doesn't like talkers.' She just sat there with her gun.
Songwriting as an art is a bit archaic now. Just writing a song is not good enough.
A lot of people that I know are bugged with the idea that they have got to have an audience, or they have got to be liked. I think the more that you fall into that trap it makes your own life harder to come to terms with, because an audience appreciation is only going to be periodic at the best of times.
A song has to take on character, shape, body and influence people to an extent that they use it for their own devices. It must affect them not just as a song, but as a lifestyle. The rock stars have assimilated all kinds of philosophies, styles, histories, writings, and they throw out what they have gleaned from that.