The best song from every David Bowie persona
“I’ve always collected personalities,” David Bowie once said. It often felt like the musician had no interest in being himself as he packed his discography out with stories of character, alternative timelines, and strange happenings. His imagination was vivid and not only spilt across each track but splashed all over him, too, as he changed his whole being to suit whatever moment he was in, like a true chameleon of music.
He changed so often that it’s difficult to even pin down how many characters Bowie took on through his discography. If we measured it simply by the clothes he was wearing at the time, there would be hundreds as the folkish British boy he began as morphed into spacemen, clowns, aliens, Goblin Kings, dystopian cool kids, and beyond.
But his characters were more than just outfits. When he snapped into a truly new era, it was a total rearrangement as his aesthetics kept up with his ever-changing and developing musical style. Never one to do the same thing twice, each new chapter of Bowie’s life saw him expanding into different and interesting worlds with new influences and references, and it seemed like the only way he knew how to do that thoroughly enough was by adopting a whole new persona to suit.
From the bold glam of Ziggy Stardust to his considered goodbye with as The Blind Prophet, each persona brought with it some incredible music. But these tracks were the best of each bunch.
The best song from every David Bowie persona:
Ziggy Stardust – ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide’
The Ziggy Stardust era of David Bowie’s life, when for the first time he stepped out of his shoes and into the platforms of his glam rock alien form, remains his most beloved character. It’s the version of Bowie that most people know best, with his sequin catsuits and dyed red mullet. With the Spiders From Mars behind him, his music during the time was all out rock and roll but with his unique storytelling edge.
Nowhere is that on display better than on ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide’. It feels odd to celebrate the era by picking the song that ended it, but the final track from The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars is a theatrical triumph that displays the best of Bowie. It still has the grip and anthemic build to be a great rock track that the crowds would sing back to him. But it’s the complexity of the song that makes it so special as the singer delves into the dark side of fame and fortune with a poetically written eulogy to his own character. Every song on that 1972 album is incredible, but ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide’ is something else, proving that Bowie never needed to be boisterous in order to be impactful, letting him tower amongst his peers in those sparkly boots.
Aladdin Sane – ‘Aladdin Sane’
Bowie wasted no time between Ziggy and his next form, Aladdin Sane, which was released in 1973. The difference between the two characters is nuanced; Ziggy crash-landed from space, but it felt like Aladdin Sane crawled up from the pits of humanity. It was darker and grittier as the singer’s own life began to buckle under the weight of fame, drugs and the pressure of a life on the road. Nothing felt quite as sparkly, so this next chapter’s rock was less glam and more of a complex contemplation of Bowie’s confusion between the life of a star and the inner world of a quiet man’s psyche.
The album’s title track stands out among the pack for being something elevated, dark, seductive and even a little scary. It’s a more considered track as it begins slow, more informed by jazz than rock. There’s also the ongoing play on words as Bowie sings “Who’ll love Aladdin Sane”, playing with the phrase “a lad insane” in reference to his worsening mental health and the memory of his schizophrenic half-brother that inspired the track. But then, as the track breaks down into a crazed, off-kilter piano solo, it becomes something altogether more avant-garde, welcoming in Bowie’s experimental streak early.
Halloween Jack – ‘Rebel Rebel’
But sometimes, what the world needs is simply a banger. There is a place and time for an anthem, and Bowie knew that well. With most eras, there came one huge tune set to please the masses, becoming adopted into the world’s songbook as a big singalong track. ‘Rebel Rebel’ is one of his best, not just from this 1974 era, but of his entire discography.
The Halloween Jack era was a blink and you’ll miss it moment. Described by Bowie as a “real cool cat”, he’s often mixed up with Ziggy or Aladdin Sane as the red mullet remained and the glam appearance stuck around. Musically, too, the Diamond Dogs era didn’t reinvent the wheel in his discography, but amongst it, ‘Rebel Revel’ is an anthem of epic proportions, led by one of the most memorable and instantly recognisable guitar intros ever written.
The Thin White Duke – ‘Station To Station’
While undeniably one of his most stylish eras, the Thin White Duke moment of the mid-1970s was not Bowie’s healthiest. Mentally and culturally, it was a dark time for the singer. He’d descended deep into drug addiction and was not handling the pressures of his touring schedule well, leading to some questionable choices of comments made while playing this divisive role.
Musically, too, the Station To Station chapter isn’t his strongest as it feels stuck between two moments. He was sick of the glam rock that had come before, but he had yet to go to Berlin, recalibrate and move forward, so the album feels a little stunted. However, the title track is something special. Referencing the character by name, it feels like a sleazy theme tune for the times. It also feels like a blueprint set for what would come next. So many of the strange instrumental flairs and production decisions seem to predict his energy for the rest of the century even.
The Blind Propet – ‘Lazarus’
The next time the world saw Bowie in a true and considered character was in 2016, the time when he said goodbye. Blackstar remains a fascinating release. It was recorded in secret as the musician gathered his most trusted collaborators, fully knowing that this would be his goodbye. The album was his self-epitaph, as he eulogised himself.
Nowhere is that more poignant than ‘Lazarus’, a song released only three days before his death that begins with Bowie singing, “Look up here, I’m in heaven”. He treated his own death with the same incredible creativity and genius eye as he did his whole life, delivering this final era of the Blind Prophet with just as much consideration and intrigue as any other character. Musically, ‘Lazarus’ is incredible, as Bowie left the world with one final and undeniable display of his otherworldly talent.
