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
Even though I was very shy, I found I could get onstage if I had a new identity.
We can be Heroes, Just for one day
...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...
What is very enlightening for me right now is that I sense that I'm arriving at a place of peace with my writing that I've never experienced before.
I told them I'd only do it if they got Arcade Fire to perform. They're fantastic.
I wanted to create an environment where not just my fans but all music lovers could be a part of the same community.
I've started doing book reviews for Barnes & Noble! They saw that I did a lot of book reviews on the site, and they figured that it might not be a bad thing if they got me to do some for them as well. I gave them five categories I'd be interested in reviewing, from art to fiction to music.
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.
I'm rather kind of old school, thinking that when an artist does his work it's no longer his.