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Nature Boy There Was A Boy A Very Strange Enchanted Boy They Say He Wandered Very Far, Very Far Over Land And Sea A Little Shy And Sad Of Eye But Very Wise Was He And Then One Day A Magic Day He Passed My Way And While We Spoke Of Many Things, Fools And Kings This He Said To Me “the Greatest Thing You’ll Ever Learn Is Just To Love And Be Loved In Return

-David Bowie

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Nature Boy There Was

David Bowie

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Nature Boy There Was A Boy A Very Strange Enchanted Boy They Say He Wandered Very Far, Very Far Over Land And Sea A Little Shy And Sad Of Eye But Very Wise Was He And Then One Day A Magic Day He Passed My Way And While We Spoke Of Many Things, Fools And Kings This He Said To Me “the Greatest Thing You’ll Ever Learn Is Just To Love And Be Loved In Return

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Rather Than Really Have, Like A Close Relationship To Anything That's Coming Out Today, People Are Just, They've Got It On As Background Music. It's Kind Of The Same Way The Cabdrivers Use Music; It's Very Disposable.

Strangely, Some Songs You Really Don't Want To Write.

I Think The Only Music I Didn't Listen To Was Country And Western, And That Holds To This Day.

Touring With Iggy Pop Was Something To Do. It Was Good Fun. I Got Drunk A Lot.

Syd Barrett Of Pink Floyd Was The First Person In Rock I Had Seen With Makeup On. He Wore Black Nail Polish And Lots Of Mascara And Black Eye Shadow, And He Was So Mysterious. It Was This Androgynous Thing I Found Absolutely Fascinating.

The Truest Form Of Any Form Of Revolutionary Left, Whatever You Want To Call It, Was Jack Kerouac, E.e. Cummings, And Allan Ginsberg's Period. Excuse Me But That Was Where It Was At. The Hippies, I'm Afraid, Don't Know What's Happening.

There Have Been Times When I've Written Something And It Goes Out And It Comes Back In A Letter From Some Kid As To What They Think About It And I've Taken Their Analysis To Heart So Much That I Have Taken Up His Thing. Writing What My Audience Is Telling Me To Write.

There Were Lots Of Nightly Relationships. But The Reason You Don't Want To Make A Commitment Is Not That You're Such A Freewheeling, Adventurous Person, It's Because You're Scared Shitless That It Will Turn Out Like Your Mother And Father.

It's Odd But Even When I Was A Kid, I Would Write About 'old And Other Times' As Though I Had A Lot Of Years Behind Me. Now I Do, So There Is A Difference In The Weight Of Memory.

Of Course, We Found Out Later Syd Barrett Had Mental Problems. But There Was Something So Otherworldly About Him. He Was Hovering, Like, Six Inches Above The Ground.

I Went Mainstream In A Major Way With The Song "let's Dance." And What I Found I Had Done Was Put A Box Around Myself. It Was Very Hard For People To See Me As Anything Other Than The Person In The Suit Who Did "let's Dance," And It Was Driving Me Mad - Because It Took All My Passion For Experimenting Away.

There's Not Much Point In Getting Any Heavier... There's Too Many Things To Read And Look At.

Radio In England Is Nonexistent. It's Very Bad English Use Of A Media System, Typically English Use.

I'm Regarded Quite Asexually By A Lot Of People. And The People That Understand Me The Best Are Nearer To What I Understand About Me.

David Bowie Emerged As A Rock Star In The Late '60s. And As Ken Tucker Wrote, "in The Face Of The Hippy Era's Sincerity, Intimacy And Generosity, Bowie Presented Irony, Distance And Self-absorption. His Song 'changes' Announced The Arrival Of A New Counterculture," Unquote.

Heathenism Is A State Of Mind. You Can Take It That I'm Referring To One Who Does Not See His World. He Has No Mental Light. He Destroys Almost Unwittingly. He Cannot Feel Any Gods Presence In His Life. He Is The 21st Century Man.

I've Made Over 25 Studio Albums, And I Think Probably I've Made Two Real Stinkers In My Time, And Some Not-bad Albums, And Some Really Good Albums. I'm Proud Of What I've Done. In Fact It's Been A Good Ride.

Critics I Don't Understand. They Get Too Intellectual. They're Not Very Well-versed In Street Talk; It Takes Them Longer To Say It. So They Have To Do It In Dictionaries And They Take Longer To Say It.

Trying To Tart The Rock Business Up A Bit Is Getting Nearer To What The Kids Themselves Are Like, Because What I Find, If You Want To Talk In The Terms Of Rock, A Lot Depends On Sensationalism And The Kids Are A Lot More Sensational Than The Stars Themselves.

[david] Bowie Went On To Make Best-selling Music - Funk, Dance Music, Electronic Music, While Also Being Influenced By Cabaret And Jazz.

Time Takes A Cigarette, Puts It In Your Mouth.

You'd Like To Know Me Well, But I've Got Things Inside My Head That Even I Can't Face.

Tony Visconti And I Had Been Wanting To Work Together Again For A Few Years Now. Both Of Us Had Fairly Large Commitments And For A Long Time We Couldn't See A Space In Which We Could Get Anything Together.

Elvis Was A Major Hero Of Mine. I Was Probably Stupid Enough To Believe That Having The Same Birthday As Him Actually Meant Something.

She's A Total Bam Bam.

Would You Carry A Razor, In Case, Just In Case Of Depression?

We Slit The Catholic Throat, Stoned The Poor On Such Slogans As Wish You Could Hear And Love Is All We Need.

This Is A Mad Planet," David Bowie Said In 1971. "it's Doomed To Madness.

Don't Let Me Hear You Say Life Takes You Nowhere, Angel.

The Underground Went Really Underground. Grand Funk, And All These People Man Are The Moderate's Choice Of Music. Underground Is Yoko Ono, The Black Poets. These People Scare The Hell Out Of Most Freaks. They Laugh At Yoko Ono, But It's The Whole Cliché.

I Kind Of Miss That "becoming" Stage, As Most Times You Really Don't Know What's Around The Corner. Now, Of Course, I've Kind Of Knocked On The Door And Heard A Muffled Answer. Nevertheless, I Still Don't Know What The Voice Is Saying, Or Even What Language It's In.

Don’t You Love The Oxford Dictionary? When I First Read It, I Thought It Was A Really Really Long Poem About Everything.

There Was A Time In America Not Long Ago When Rock 'n' Roll Was Called Race Music, And White Kids Who Wanted To Go See Chuck Berry Were Completely Forbidden.

My Father Worked For A Children's Home Called Dr. Barnardo's Homes. They're A Charity.

As You Get Older, The Questions Come Down To About Two Or Three. How Long? And What Do I Do With The Time I've Got Left?

Hear This Robert Zimmerman, I Wrote A Song For You, About A Strange Young Man Called Dylan With A Voice Like Sand And Glue.

Is It Nice In Your Snowstorm- Freezing Your Brain? Do You Think That Your Face Looks The Same?

Once I've Written Something It Does Tend To Run Away From Me. I Don't Seem To Have Any Part Of It - It's No Longer My Piece Of Writing.

I Really Believe That Bob Dylan And Others Have Speeded Up The Changes. Pacifism Has Found A Voice At Last.

I'm English. I Can't Accept Happiness That Easily. There's Got To Be A Trick In There Somewhere.

I Surrounded Myself With People Who Indulged My Ego. They Treated Me As Though I Was Ziggy Stardust Or One Of My Characters, Never Realising That David Jones Might Be Behind It.

Church On Time, Makes Me Party.

I Never Really Had Much Of An Interest In Fashion.

Pixies And Sonic Youth Were So Important To The Eighties.

Lou Reed Is The Most Important Definitive Writer In Modern Rock. Not Because Of The Stuff That He Does, But The Direction That He Will Take It.

I Heard The News Today, Oh Boy.

The Character Thing Really Is Sort Of, For Me, Personally, Rather Ancient History.

Ancient History

It Always Felt Like You Were Trying Too Hard To Look Like The Audience Or Something. That Whole Thing About The Artistic Integrity, Which, Of Course, I've Never Bought Into - With Any Artist. It's Just Not A Real Thing.

I Started Playing Around With Local Rock Band Swith The Alto. And Then, In A Nutshell, Somebody Fell Ill One Night, The Lead Singer Of One Of The Bands, And They Knew I Could Sing, So They Asked Me If I Would Stand In. And I Quite Enjoyed It, Actually, I Must Say, At 14. It Was A Real Trip To Have Girls Wave At You And Smile And Everything Just Because You Opened Your Mouth And Sang.

For Here, Am I Sitting In A Tin Can, Far Above The World. Planet Earth Is Blue, And There's Nothing I Can Do... Though I'm Past One Hundred Thousand Miles, I'm Feeling Very Still - And I Think My Spaceship Knows Which Way To Go. Tell My Wife I Love Her Very Much.

And It's Always The Same Kind Of Artist, I Think, Who Has More Enjoyment Being Slightly On The Outside Of Things, Who Doesn't Want To Be Sucked Into The Tyranny Of The Mainstream. Because Once You Get Sucked Into That, You're Dead As An Artist.

I Find It Easier To Write In These Little Vignettes; If I Try To Get Any More Heavy, I Find Myself Out Of My League.

It Would Be My Guess That Madonna Is Not A Very Happy Woman. From My Own Experience, Having Gone Through Persona Changes Like That, That Kind Of Clawing Need To Be The Center Of Attention Is Not A Pleasant Place To Be.

I'm Not Sure That An Art Career Would Have Any Benefit For Me; I'm Not Sure It's What I Want. I Don't Think I Want To Be A Designer-rock Artist.

I Went Through All The Musicians In My Life Who I Admire As Bright, Intelligent, Virtuosic Players.

Make The Best Of Every Moment. We're Not Evolving. We're Not Going Anywhere.

Actually, My Ambition At Eight Or Nine Years Old Was To Be One Of Little Richard's Sax Players, And That's When I Got My First Saxophone, A Selmer. It Was A Strange Bakelite Material - That Creamy Plastic With All The Gold Keys On It. I Had To Get A Job As A Butcher's Delivery Boy To Start Paying For It.

Hitler Was The First Superstar.

Having Not Really Written Any Generational Songs - I Think Maybe Two Or Three Of The Songs That I've Ever Written Have Any Bearing On The Age Of The Listener. My Stuff Tends To Be Far More Concerned With The Spiritual And With Subjects Like Isolation And Being Miserable.

I Don't Like To Read Things That People Write About Me. I'd Rather Read What Kids Have To Say About Me, Because It's Not Their Profession To Do That.

They're The Salt Of The Earth, Those Girls. They Don't Sit Each Night And Compare Notes On Groups, Criticising Lyrics, Asking If It's Valid. They Just Play The Record... Yeah, And Maybe They Dance. I Love Them. I Love Them Dearly

It Amazes Me Sometimes That Even Intelligent People Will Analyze A Situation Or Make A Judgement After Only Recognizing The Standard Or Traditional Structure Of A Piece.

I Had To Resign Myself, Many Years Ago, That I'm Not Too Articulate When It Comes To Explaining How I Feel About Things. But My Music Does It For Me, It Really Does.

I Think Fame Itself Is Not A Rewarding Thing. The Most You Can Say Is That It Gets You A Seat In Restaurants.

I Think A Lot Of That Album ["tonight" ] Is Still Very Good . . . The Songs, But I Think I Was Indifferent To The Arrangements.

The Coming Together Of People I Find Obscene As A Principle. It Is Not Human. It Is Not A Natural Thing As Some People Would Have Us Believe.

I Think The First Experience Scared The Hell Out Of Me. Within Months Of My Initial Marriage [on Angela Bowie], I Realized I Had Done A Really Naive And Rather Stupid Thing. . . . I Don't Think Either Of Us Had Any Real Resolve About Being Together. The Result Was It Made Me Wary Of Relationships.

See The Mice In Their Million Hordes From Ibiza To The Norfolk Broads.

I've Learned To Relax And Be My Present Age And My Present Position. I Feel Comfortable On My Mid-thirties. It Doesn't Seem Such An Alien Place To Be.

When You Think About It, Adolf Hitler Was The First Pop Star.

Questioning My Spiritual Life Has Always Been Germane To What I Was Writing. Always. It's Because I'm Not Quite An Atheist And It Worries Me. There's That Little Bit That Holds On: 'well, I'm Almost An Atheist. Give Me A Couple Of Months.'

I Don't Live For The Stage. I Don't Live For An Audience.

It's Almost A Social Grace To Get Into The Art World, And I'm Very Wary Of It. Art Was Good In Berlin In The Late '70s - There Was A Lot More Guts To Art When The Neo-expressionists Were Starting Up; It Was Real Slapdash; It Has Real Heart To It - But It Seems So Cold And Heartless In America. It's A Buyer's Market.

All Art Is Unstable. Its Meaning Is Not Necessarily That Implied By The Author. There Is No Authoritative Voice. There Are Only Multiple Readings.

I'm In Awe Of The Universe, But I Don't Necessarily Believe There's An Intelligence Or Agent Behind It. I Do Have A Passion For The Visual In Religious Rituals, Though, Even Though They May Be Completely Empty And Bereft Of Substance. The Incense Is Powerful And Provocative, Whether Buddhist Or Catholic.

Some People Are Marching Together And Some On Their Own. Others Are Running, The Smaller Ones Crawl. But Some Sit In Silence.

Sweet Head, Give You Sweet Head.

Since Early Middle Ages When People Generally Taking Away The Barbarity Of Their Like, Were Pretty Content. Although It Was All An Illicit Contentment, What With The Slave Systems All Over The World, In England Especially, The Peasants And The Master, Etc. People Were Incredibly Content.

Wham, Bam, Thank You Ma'am.

Sits Like A Man, But Smiles Like A Reptile.

I Have Found Myself Deeply, Deeply Intrigued By The Ska-punk Scene. It's Such An Expressive Form Of Popular Music, It's So Real, It's Got So Much Life: It's The Most Vital Music In The World.

She Asked For My Love And I Gave Her A Dangerous Mind.

This Ain't Rock 'n' Roll. This Is Genocide!

Who'll Love Aladdin Sane? Battle Cries And Champagne Just In Time For Sunrise.

I'm Quite Certain That The Audience That I've Got For My Stuff Don't Listen To The Lyrics.

I'll Ruin Everything You Are, I'll Give You Television.

We Were Terribly Excited, And I Think We Took It On Our Shoulders That We Were Creating The 21st Century In 1971. That Was The Idea. And We Wanted To Just Blast Everything In The Past, Rather Like The Vorticists Did At The Beginning Of The Century In The Britain Or The Dadaists Did Europe, You Know. It Was The Same Sensibility Of Everything Is Rubbish, And All Rubbish Is Wonderful.

I Think Lindsay Kemp Really Introduced Me To The Work Of Jean Genet, And Through That, I Kind Of Kept Re-educating Myself About Other Prose Writers And Poets.

I've Always Been Very Chauvinistic, Even In My Boy-obsessed Days. But I Was Always A Gentleman. I Alwaysd Treated My Boys Like Real Ladies. Always Escorted Them Properly And, In Fact, I Suppose If I Were A Lot Older - Like 40 Or 50 - I'd Be A Wonderful Sugar Daddy To Some Little Queen Down In Kensington. I'd Have A Houseboy Named Richard To Order Around.

I Really Floated Around In The '60s, Because I Felt Comfortable With Nothing.

Trust Nothing But Your Own Experience.

The Media Is Either Our Salvation Or Our Death.

The Best Djs In The World Know How To Pull In Music From All Over The Place And Make It Work As A Cohesive Whole.

To Be Taken Seriously About Doing Something Creative And Probably Travel A Lot. That Was My Motivation. I Knew I Was Good, I Knew I Could Write. I Also Knew You Could Get Laid Really Easily.

However, There's No Theme Or Concept Behind Heathen, Just A Number Of Songs But Somehow There Is A Thread That Runs Through It That Is Quite As Strong As Any Of My Thematic Type Albums.

The Younger People Get Into The Lyrics In A Different Way; There's Much More Of A Tactile Understanding, Which Is The Way I Prefer It.

I Met My Wife Because We Were Both Going Out With The Same Guy.

I Believe That I Often Bring Out The Best In Somebody's Talents.

I Think I Am A Lot More Relaxed About What I Have Or Haven't Done.

I'm Not At Ease With The Word "love."

Ziggy Played Guitar, Jamming Good With Weird And Gilly.

I'm Looking For Backing For An Unauthorized Auto-biography That I Am Writing. Hopefully, This Will Sell In Such Huge Numbers That I Will Be Able To Sue Myself For An Extraordinary Amount Of Money And Finance The Film Version In Which I Will Play Everybody.

Secret Thinker Sometimes Listening Aloud.

People Will Keep The Tv On Even If A Show Is On That They Hate - Because, Unfortunately, They've Been Programmed To Do That.

On "tonight" I Think I Was Torn Dreadfully Between Writing What I Wanted To Write, But Keeping It In A Style That Would Follow Up What I Had Just Done. That's Where I Feel I Was Untrue To Myself As An Artist . . . That Album And, To A Lesser Extent, "never Let Me Down."

If You Come From Art, You'll Always Be Art.

There's Something About The Style Of Living In The Country That They Feel, "this Is What Represents Me." So Style Is About The Philosophy Of How We Create Our Civilization.

I Woke Up One Day And Realized I Was A Closet Hetero

I Think It All Comes Back To Being Very Selfish As An Artist. I Mean, I Really Do Just Write And Record What Interests Me And I Do Approach The Stage Shows In Much The Same Way.

A Career Of Nearly 40 Years, Is Not Very Long.

My Work Is Really The Accumulation Of These Different Moods That I've Had Throughout My Life And Where They've Taken Me. I Start Looking Back, And I Think, I've Actually Created A Life Out Of All This, Out Of These Changes Of Mood. They've Pushed Me Through All These Years, And I Seem To Have A Semblance Of A Life, And If I Look Very Carefully, I Can See Some Thematic Design To It. There's Some Continuity.

He Took It All Too Far, But Boy Could He Play Guitar.

I Ask For So Little.just Fear Me, Love Me, Do As I Say And I Will Be Your Slave

Turn And Face The Strange.

[while] My Life Started Taking On All The Problems Of Addiction. So That Took Me Off Into An Area Where Relationships Were Absolutely Impossible To Handle On Any Real Level. . . . Even Communicating With Other People Was Impossible.

Some Make You Sing And Some Make You Scream. One Makes You Wish That You'd Never Been Seen. But There's A Shop On The Corner That's Selling Papier Mache, Making Bullet-proof Faces, Charlie Manson, Cassius Clay. If You Want It, Boys, Get It Here, Thing.

Nothing Prepared Me For Your Smile

The Absolute Transformation Of Everything That We Ever Thought About Music Will Take Place Within 10 Years, And Nothing Is Going To Be Able To Stop It. I See Absolutely No Point In Pretending That It's Not Going To Happen. I'm Fully Confident That Copyright, For Instance, Will No Longer Exist In 10 Years.

I'm A Phallus In Pigtails, And There's Blood On My Nose, And My Tissue Is Rotting Where The Rats Chew My Bones. And My Eye Sockets Empty, See Nothing But Pain, I Keep Having This Brainstorm About Twelve Times A Day.

By The Mid-'80s, It Was Really Apparent To Me That I Really Needed To Stop Losing Myself In My Work And In My Addictions. What Happens Is You Just Wake Up One Morning And Feel Absolutely Dead. You Can't Even Drag Your Soul Back Into Your Body. You Feel You Have Negated Everything That Is Wonderful About Life. When You Have Fallen That Far, It Feels Like A Miracle When You Regain Your Love Of Life.

It's Much Easier For Me To Say That, The Kind Of Music I Didn't Listen To Was Pretty Much That. I Mean Everything, From Jazz To Classical To Popular. And Tibetan Horns Were A Great Part Of It In 1966, '67.

I Don't Believe In Proper Cinema; It Doesn't Have The Strength Of Television. People Having To Go Out To The Cinema Is Really Archaic. I'd Much Rather Sit At Home.

That's The Shock: All Cliches Are True. The Years Really Do Speed By. Life Really Is As Short As They Tell You It Is. And There Really Is A God - So Do I Buy That One? If All The Other Cliches Are True... Hell, Don't Pose Me That One.

My Mother Was A Housewife. Both From - Well, My Father Was From A Farming Family, Agricultural Family In The North Of England. And My Mother Came From A Very Working Class.

The Moment You Know You Know You Know.

Rebel, Rebel, You've Torn Your Dress. Rebel, Rebel, Your Face Is A Mess. Rebel, Rebel, How Could They Know? Hot Tramp, I Love You So.

Always Drawn To The Theatric, Bowie Also Performed In Stage Productions Of "the Elephant Man" And Just Recently Collaborated On "lazarus," An Off-broadway Musical That's A Sequel To His 1976 Role In The Film "the Man Who Fell To Earth."

I Don't Think I Did Anything That My Contemporaries Didn't; It Was Just That I Was The Only One Who Talked About It. In The Sixties Anyone Who Had A Sense Of Style Seemed To Be Gay. I Wanted To Indentify With That.

I Guess Ziggy Would Have Been The Perfect Vehicle To Have Done With.

I'm Well Past The Age Where I'm Acceptable. You Get To A Certain Age And You Are Forbidden Access. You're Not Going To Get The Kind Of Coverage That You Would Like In Music Magazines, You're Not Going To Get Played On Radio And You're Not Going To Get Played On Television. I Have To Survive On Word Of Mouth.

Speak In Extremes, It'll Save You Time.

There, In The Chords And Melodies, Is Everything I Want To Say. The Words Just Jolly It Along. It's Always Been My Way Of Expressing What For Me Is Inexpressible By Any Other Means.

You Know, I Don't Feel Fifty. I Feel Not A Day Over Forty-nine. It's Incredible. I'm Bouncy, I Feel Bouncy.

Nature Boy There Was A Boy A Very Strange Enchanted Boy They Say He Wandered Very Far, Very Far Over Land And Sea A Little Shy And Sad Of Eye But Very Wise Was He And Then One Day A Magic Day He Passed My Way And While We Spoke Of Many Things, Fools And Kings This He Said To Me “the Greatest Thing You’ll Ever Learn Is Just To Love And Be Loved In Return

The End Comes When The Infinites Arrive.

Visions Of Swastikas In My Head, Plans For Everyone. It's In The Whites Of My Eyes.

It's A Compulsive Need To Wreck Everything. You Might Notice There's A Pattern Of Stripping Down And Building Back Up Again Throughout My Life. But I Guess That's How Some Of Us Conduct Our Lives.

1961 Was When I Was Really Into Clothes. I Left School At 15 And Started Copying A Bloke Who Used To Go Up On The Train To London With Me; Leslie, I Think His Name Was. He Was Like, Top Mod Of His Own Area. He Wore Italian Jackets With White Linen Jeans. Boy, Was That Cool! I Mean, That's In Style Now - It's Very Much The L.a. Look. But He Was Wearing It Then, And It Looked Supercool.

I Could Never Have Done What I Did Without Being Involved With Lindsay Kemp's Company.

And These Children That You Spit On As They Try To Change Their Worlds Are Immune To Your Consultations. They're Quite Aware Of What They're Going Through.

I Guess A Certain Contingent Of The Musicians In London At The Beginning Of The '70s Were Fed Up With Denim And The Hippies. And I Think We Kind Of Wanted To Go Somewhere Else.

But I'm Pretty Good With Collaborative Thinking. I Work Well With Other People.

I Was Told That It Was Cool To Fall In Love, And That Period Was Nothing Like That To Me. I Gave Too Much Of My Time And Energy To Another Person And They Did The Same To Me And We Started Burning Out Against Each Other. And That Is What Is Termed Love.

Falling In Love

I'm Really Quite Bipolar, And The Depressed Times, When Everything Felt Like Night, Sometimes You Get To Such A Low Point That You Physically Beat At It Until It Bleeds - As You Would Say - Bleeds Till Sunshine.

I'm Not Actually A Very Keen Performer. I Like Putting Shows Together. I Like Putting Events Together.

He Says He's A Beautician And Sells You Nutrition, And Keeps All Your Dead Hair For Making Underwear.

And You, You Can Be Mean And I, I'll Drink All The Time 'cause We're Lovers, And That Is A Fact Yes We're Lovers, And That Is That

You Can't Go On Stage And Live - It's False All The Way. I Can't Stand The Premise Of Going Out In Jeans And A Guitar And Looking As Real As You Can In Front Of 18,000 People. I Mean, It's Not Normal!

Nearly All The Synth Work On Heathen Is Mine And Some Of The Piano.

It Was Fun To Be Clever.

I Don't Expect The Human Race To Progress In Too Many Areas. However, Having A Child With An Ear Infection Makes One Hugely Grateful For Antibiotics.

Tomorrow Belongs To Those Who Can Hear It Coming.

I'm Drawn Between The Light And Dark.

It Would Be Positively Boring If Minds Were In Tune.

On The Other Hand, What I Like My Music To Do To Me Is Awaken The Ghosts Inside Of Me. Not The Demons, You Understand, But The Ghosts.

I Guess, - A Greater Number Of The 26 Or So Albums That I've Made Are Known In Europe Than They Are In America.

With "let's Dance," There Was Actually A Chance That I Was Actually Going To Be Able To Keep The Money I Had Made.

Music Itself Is Going To Become Like Running Water Or Electricity. So It's Like, Just Take Advantage Of These Last Few Years Because None Of This Is Ever Going To Happen Again. You'd Better Be Prepared For Doing A Lot Of Touring Because That's Really The Only Unique Situation That's Going To Be Left.

The Name Bowie Just Appealed To Me When I Was Younger. I Was Into A Kind Of Heavy Philosophy Thing When I Was 16 Years Old, And I Wanted A Truism About Cutting Through The Lies And All That.

I Was Studying Tibetan Buddhism When I Was Quite Young, Again Influenced By Kerouac.

I Couldn't Stand To Be Separated With My Wife For Months. It Became Quickly Apparent To Me That I Needed To Find A Balance Between My Absolute Work Obsession And A Private Life That We Could Share Without My Disappearing All The Time.

I Have Absolutely No Interest In Rock And Roll. I'm Just Being David Bowie. Mick Jagger Is Rock And Roll. I Mean, I Go Out And My Music Is Roughly The Format Of Rock And Roll, I Use The Chord Changes Of Rock And Roll, But I Don't Feel I'm A Rock And Roll Artist. I'd Be A Terrible Rock Artist, Absolutely Ghastly.

I'm Gay And Always Have Been, Even When I Was David Jones.

I Had Enormous Self-image, Problems And Very Low Self-esteem, Which I Hid Behind Obsessive Writing And Performing. It's Exactly What I Do Now Except I Enjoy It Now. I'm Not Driven Like I Was In My Twenties. I Was Driven To Get Through Life Very Quickly.

I Want People To Hear Musicians Like Joe Cuba. He Has Done Things To Whole Masses Of Puerto Rican People. The Music Is Fantastic And Important.

When I Was 9 Years Old, I Wanted To Be The Baritone Sax Player In The Little Richard Band.

It's Not The Side-effects Of The Cocaine - I'm Thinking That It Must Be Love. It's Too Late To Be Grateful, It's Too Late To Be Hateful, It's Too Late To Be Late Again, The European Cannon Is Here.

I Think The First Song I Ever Wrote ... Was Called "can't Help Thinking About Me." That's An Illuminating Little Piece, Isn't It?

Sexuality And Where It Is Going Is An Extraordinary Question, For I Don't See It Going Anywhere. It Is With Me, And That's It.

The Only Art I'll Ever Study Is Stuff I Can Steal From.

I Never Heard So Many Kids Talk About Just Doing Anything To Be Famous. I Mean, Yeah, Fame Is Part Of The Deal When You're A Kid And You Think, I Wanna Go Into Music, But Everybody That I Knew Was Really Doing It Because Of Their Love For It. I Don't See So Much Of That Anymore.

I'm Not A Natural Performer. I Don't Like Performing Very Much.

The Public, Obviously, They Takes Things In A Very Simplest Fashion And So They Should. That's Why We Have Such Wonderful Television.

I Feel That What I Do Is Always Contemporary With The Society I'm Living In... If I Wanted To Explain Myself, That's How I'd Explain Myself: That I'm A Diarist.

The Sun Machine Is Coming Down, And We're Gonna Have A Party.

I Really Wanted To Do, More Than Anything Else, Up Until I Was Around 16, 17, Was Write Musicals.

You Should Turn Around At The End Of The Day And Say I Really Like That Piece Of Work, Or That Piece Of Work Sucked. Not, Was That Popular Or Wasn't It Popular?

The End Of The Day

Capitalism Can Be Alright, I Mean Karl Marx Didn't Live To See What Roosevelt Did With That Depression. He Pulled Everybody Out Of That Depression And Everybody Hated Franklin Roosevelt. He Got Into Office Four Times. One After The Other, With Everybody Saying, He Can't Get In Again. Everybody Voted For Roosevelt Four Times And He Did A Hell Of A Lot.

There's A Schizoid Streak Within The Family Anyway So I Dare Say That I'm Affected By That. The Majority Of The People In My Family Have Been In Some Kind Of Mental Institution, As For My Brother He Doesn't Want To Leave. He Likes It Very Much.

I Think It's Rather A Waste Of Time Endlessly Singing The Same Songs Every Night For A Year, And It's Just Not What I Want To Do.

We See Each Other [ With Iman Abdulmajid] A Lot. I Couldn't Stand To Be Separated For Months. It Became Quickly Apparent To Me That I Needed To Find A Balance Between My Absolute Work Obsession And A Private Life That We Could Share Without My Disappearing All The Time.

People Look To Me To See What The Spirit Of The Seventies Is.

Oooh, Fashion, We Are The Goon Squad And Were Coming To Town, Beep Beep.

I Had A Fantasy That I'd Drift Up To Scotland And Spend My Life As A Faux Bodhisattua.

Time May Change Me, But I Can't Trace Time.

Rock Has Always Been The Devil's Music... I Believe That Rock & Roll Is Dangerous... I Feel That We're Only Heralding Something Even Darker Than Ourselves.

If We Could Be Heroes, If Just For One Day.

I Always Write Well In New York.

The Only Time That I've Adopted Characterization Again Since That Point, For My Own Albums, Has Been An Album Called "outside" That I Did With Brian Eno.

Characterization

If I Hadn't Had My Children, I Would Have Been Discouraged A Lot Quicker. It Would Have Been Much More Easy For Me To Say, "you Know What, Let The Whole Thing Go. Have A Good Time, Because These People, This Place - It's Just Not Worth It." You Know? I Can't Do That Anymore. I Look Into Those Eyes And They Look At Me So Trustingly That I'm Gonna Make Sure That [they're Thinking], "hey, You Did A Good Thing Bringing Me Into The World, Daddy. I'm Going To Have A Great Life!"

Fame Can Take Interesting Men And Thrust Mediocrity Upon Them.

I Hate Albums That Are Really Happy. When I Am Really Happy, I Don't Like To Hear Happy Albums, And When I Am Really Sad I Don't Wanna Hear Happy Albums... And I Tend To Gravitate Towards The Lonely And Isolated Anyway When I Write.

I Was Always Accused Of Being Cold And Unfeeling. It Was Because I Was Intimidated About Touching People.

If I Put Faith In Medication, If I Can Smile A Crooked Smile, If I Can Talk On Television, If I Can Walk An Empty Mile.

I Think That We Have Created A New Kind Of Person In A Way. We Have Created A Child Who Will Be So Exposed To The Media That He Will Be Lost To His Parents By The Time He Is 12.

I'm Wary Of The Word Glam Because I Think That Became The All-inclusive Term With For Any Bloke With Lipstick On, Which Is Fine, You Know, And That's What It Is When It Comes Down To The Public Level.

I Got A Bad Migraine That Lasted 3 Years, And The Pills I Took Made By Fingers Disappear.

I Once Asked [john] Lennon What He Thought Of What I Do. He Said 'it's Great, But Its Just Rock And Roll With Lipstick On'.

It Is Amazing How A New Child Can Refocus One's Direction Seconds After Its Birth. Everything Falls Into A Feeling Of 'rightness'.

They [people] Mistake Fashion For Style.

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Martin Van Buren

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