David Bowie & the Story of Ziggy Stardust
- Year:
- 2012
- 60 min
- 172 Views
THIS PROGRAMME CONTAINS
SOME STRONG LANGUAGE
rooms across the British Isles,
a strange alien creature was
beamed onto our television screens.
With bright red hair
and a multi-coloured space-suit,
his unearthly appearance
shocked the nation.
But for many teenagers
who experienced this
tele-visual visitation,
it would change their lives forever.
# Star man waiting in the sky
# He'd like to come and meet us
# But he thinks he'll blow our
minds... #
This messianic Martian was with us
only for a year but his impact would
be felt for generations to come.
# Cos he knows it's all worth
while... #
Music on Planet Earth
would never be the same again.
# All the children boogie... #
# Oh... #
Armed with laser-guided melodies
and lyrics from another dimension,
Ziggy Stardust heralded
a new era of rock music.
# I'm an alligator
# I'm a mama-papa coming for you... #
A time of outlandish fashion...
# People stare at the make-up
on his face... #
..outrageous sexuality...
# Wham bam, thank you, ma'am
# Suffragette city... #
..and good
old-fashioned, rock 'n' roll music.
# Jean Genie lives on his back
# Jean Genie loves
chimney stacks... #
So, what made this mysterious
extra-terrestrial
one of the most influential
cultural icons of the 20th Century?
# Now Ziggy played guitar. #
This is
how Ziggy Stardust blew our minds.
# Well, Annie's pretty neat
# She always eats her meat
# Joe is awful strong
# Bet your life he's putting us on
# Oh Lordy, oh Lordy
# You know I need some loving... #
Ziggy Stardust set David Bowie
on course
to becoming one of the world's most
famous pop stars.
As the Queen Of The Glam Scene,
he always seemed a step
ahead of everyone else.
Where Ziggy walked, others followed,
whether that was his army
of screaming fans
or copycat artists
struggling to keep up.
David took it to another level. He
just wiped the floor with everybody.
It was game-changing.
When we first saw Bowie
as Ziggy Stardust,
so fully-formed.
It almost was as though he appeared
from a different planet.
It was extraordinary.
And at that time you didn't realise
that he'd been trying to be
successful for ten years.
'I'm just, by nature,
a very flighty person.
'I get turned on and off things,
all the time, very quickly.'
Born in 1947, David Robert Jones
spent his teenage years
trying to make it as a musician.
# Well, I got girl
that she's good to me... #
He went through a series of bands
playing R'n'B and Rock'n'Roll
before becoming a mod.
# London boy, oh, London boy... #
The belief was, that if you want to
do something bad enough,
and you put your mind to it,
you can. The trouble is,
he didn't just take one thing.
He took loads of things.
He wanted to be everything.
Aged 20, he changed his name from
Jones to Bowie
album on Deram Records.
# Who's that hiding
# In the apple tree... #
It was a strange mix of music hall
and whimsical pop.
He even tried his hand
at a children's novelty record.
# Ha ha ha
# Hee hee hee
# I'm a laughing gnome
and you can't catch me
# Said the laughing gnome
I think he was trying on what can
I do, and what do people want,
and going through
the trial and error period.
And there was a lot of error,
you know, with the laughing gnome,
it's like, OK.
# And gave him a fag
# Have you got a light, boy?... #
The laughing gnome
is not a great record,
but it is indicative
of what he was doing at the time
because he was obsessed
with Anthony Newley.
# What kind of fool am I?... #
Anthony Newley was
a giant of British popular culture.
As adept as a singer,
dancer and entertainer
as he was at creating surreal comedy
that paved the way for Monty Python.
He was more than meets the eye,
Anthony Newley, He wasn't just,
"What kind of fool am I?"
Yeah, he wrote that,
but there was many other sides to
Anthony Newley.
Films, the Gurney Slade TV thing,
which was ground-breaking
when it happened.
So, I think that's
what interested David.
It begs the question,
if David Bowie had found success
with his Anthony Newley phase, would
he have become a light entertainer?
But as both the Laughing Gnome
and the Deram album
were the latest in a line
of commercial failures,
we'll never know.
But Newley's quirky versatility
would certainly later inform
the theatrical DNA of Ziggy Stardust
'I would try and get involved
'in anything that I felt was a useful
tool for a narcissistic medium.
'I was trying to be
a one-man revolution, you know.'
Around the same time the Deram
album was released,
Bowie met Lindsay Kemp,
a British dancer who specialised
in mime and avant-garde theatre.
I was endeavouring
to teach him to astonish,
to astonish a public.
I helped him find himself
through his movements.
So he could express himself, so he
had the right kind of control.
Being my student, he was so keen.
He was like a sponge.
He would absorb anything
that took his interest.
Those classes included some mime
but mostly dance.
I taught him to dance.
Within a few weeks of meeting,
Kemp and Bowie
had created a stage-play
called Pierrot In Turquoise,
which they toured together
around the UK to critical acclaim.
Offstage, they embarked on an affair
the choreographer introducing the
young singer
to London's gay intelligentsia.
He had an enormous sexual appetite,
which came across on the stage.
I mean, it's a useful thing to have,
if one has an outlet.
But the dance troupe didn't
pay the bills.
And nor did his next
musical direction,
a folk trio called Feathers.
Bowie turned to acting
to help finance his music,
taking small film roles
and even starring
in an ice-cream ad.
And then, seemingly from nowhere,
he hit upon a formula to finally
launch his music career.
Put out to coincide with
the 1969 lunar landings,
the single rocketed
to number five in the UK charts.
# This is ground control
# To Major Tom
# You've really made the grade
# And the papers want to know whose
shirts you wear... #
Space Oddity, that was a game
changing record,
was the record that inspired me to
make the Elton John record.
I said I just want the sound
that's on that record,
cos it was so extraordinary.
# This is Major Tom
to ground control... #
Although essentially
another novelty record,
it was also a masterful
piece of songwriting.
But the songs on
the self-titled album,
released to cash in
on the single's success,
sounded nothing like Space Oddity.
# Spy, spy, pretty girl
# I see you see me
through your window. #
The record buying public
couldn't understand
what David Bowie was all about.
It was a strange record,
because at the time,
he was writing folk songs.
His latest thing was having long
hair, going on stage,
crossing his legs, and playing an
acoustic guitar.
And, so, consequently,
he didn't really click again,
with the public,
because his image
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