Finding himself
By Sergio Ariza
In January 1971 David Bowie had just turned 24, and had behind him three studio albums and a seven-year career (if we count from the release date of his first single) - that did not seem to be taking him anywhere. He had tasted the sweetness of success in 1969 with Space Oddity but, after the failure of The Prettiest Star, he had returned to the starting blocks. To top it off, his friend Marc Bolan, who had started at the same time as him, was becoming the biggest rock star in the country, with T. Rex.
Bowie knew he had talent
but having started with R&B, having been a Mod, a hippie folk singer and a mime
cabaret act, he was not sure who he really was. It was the right time to look
in the mirror and see what was reflected. It was a revelation, Bowie saw that
he was the sum of his changes, he was not an R&B singer, nor folk, nor any
other; it was all of them at the same time, as he would say later his true
style was an amalgam: "Jacques Brel leading the Velvet Underground
" The change was his personality and he would know how to reflect it perfectly:
"Still don’t know what I was waiting
for, and my time was running wild, a million dead end streets, and every time I
thought I had it made, it seemed the taste was not so sweet. So I turned mysel
to face me but I’ve never caught a glimpse, How the others must see the faker,
I'm much too fast to take that test. Changes (turn and face the strange)
Changes, I don’t want to be a richer man, Changes (turn and face the strange)
Changes, (there’s gonna have to be a different man), time may change me but I can’t
trace time."
Hunky Dory represented the creation of the
myth of Bowie as chameleon, of the artist as we know him. It was in these songs
where he was definitively confirmed 'cum laude' as an exquisite composer. It
helped that he left his comfort zone and began to compose with an instrument
that he did not dominate especially well, the piano. Until that moment his
instrument of choice when making new melodies was his beloved acoustic 12
string guitars, at the time a Guild and a Hagstrom, but for Hunky Dory he began to play with a piano
that was in the flat that he shared with his wife Angie, who was about to give birth to their first child (dedicated
to him would be the adorable Kooks).
This is how he explored other possibilities and gave the album a more austere
and less rock sound than the previous one, The
Man Who Sold The World.
Even so, Bowie had been
delighted with his new guitarist, Mick Ronson, and decided to call him
back for this new recording. Ronson would again become his secret weapon and
also bring him a full band, Mick
Woodmansey on drums and Trevor
Bolder on bass. The Spiders of Mars
were ready to record their first album with Bowie, although they still did not
know they had that name. Other important factors in the recording would be the
addition of Ken Scott as producer,
who replaced Tony Visconti, and the contracting
of Rick Wakeman at the piano. Bowie
knew that he had several gems in his possession, but he was also aware that his
rudimentary knowledge of the piano was not the best to draw out all their
potential. So he sat down with the future member of Yes and told him that he wanted to make this record from a
different angle, build it around the piano. Bowie told Wakeman he had to play
these songs as if they were piano concert pieces - playing all the possible
notes - and then he would adapt them from the piano arrangement. Wakeman could
not believe what he heard, the songs were amazing, pieces like Life On Mars? and Changes, songs destined to remain in the collective memory.
The recording sessions were
marathon, with Bowie in charge, always knowing how to get the best out of his
musicians. Ronson, despite not having as much presence as in The Man Who Sold The World, returns to
shine with his Les Paul Custom 68 in several moments as in Life On Mars?, Eight Line Poem, Song For Bob Dylan and Queen Bitch, the record that would
advance the sound of the character with which Bowie would reach the top a year
later. But the importance of Ronson on the album goes beyond his guitar because
in the previous months he had been studying music theory and arrangements, so
with that knowledge and his natural talent he was put in charge of the
wonderful string arrangements of songs like Quicksand
and Life On Mars?
Another strong influence came
from Bowie’s fascination with London's growing underground gay culture, which helped
him forge his identity as a bisexual. Bowie also goes a step further and
delivers the most bizarre, poetic lyrics of his entire career, with influences
such as Nietzsche and Crowley and several other heroes that,
in one way or another, are referenced in these songs, such as Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, John Lennon, Bob Dylan and Andy
Warhol. The first two and the last he would meet that same year when he
made his first visit to the US, a trip that greatly influenced this particular
album and his career in general, as he used a combination of Reed and Pop to
create his definitive character, Ziggy Stardust.
But before that, Hunky Dory
would arrive, the album in which he was finally ready for his close-up (like the
one on the cover). The changes kept coming but this time they were totally
controlled and the character was always above them, this is how a record as
varied as this sounds so coherent, either through the cabaret piano that opens Changes before breaking into a chorus
that seems taken from the Who’s My Generation, or the blast of Queen Bitch
guitar, with a nod to Eddie
Cochran included, or in the coexistence of the folk singer-songwriter of The Bewley Brothers with the Martian who
sings that enormity called Life On Mars?
to the 'Homo Superior' before delivering one of the brightest chorus of his
career on Oh, You Pretty Things - everything
is in its place, and the artist is able to sell it as a whole.
The world would discover
him a year later disguised as Ziggy but Bowie had already found himself in Hunky Dory, his first masterpiece and
one of the most beautiful albums in the history of pop music.