Brandon Flowers picks his favourite song by David Bowie
From the very moment David Bowie entered Brandon Flowers’ life, nothing was the same again. That first instant he was introduced to the Englishman proved seismic, and he later credited Bowie with the major reason he formed The Killers.
Flowers is too young to have lived through Bowie in his heyday, but once he heard one track, the future Killers frontman was hooked. He also didn’t need to agonisingly wait for each album to be released because there was already a treasure trove of records crafted by Bowie that was waiting to be devoured.
Reflecting upon that eye-opening moment with The Independent in 2011, Flowers recalled: “I still remember when I heard ‘Changes’ for the first time. I thought it was Bob Dylan because of the way he sings the verses. I found out it was Bowie, and it was from this album called Hunky Dory.”
He continued: “It’s the most important record to me, ever. I appreciate that he’s still able to write songs because even when there’s a rough album, there will always be that one song on there that grabs you. But Hunky Dory is the pinnacle – there’s not one song I skip past. I was driving, and I heard him on the radio, and it changed everything.”
Flowers concluded: “I took two classes in college before I realised that I just couldn’t do it. I just left the last one, and I heard ‘Changes’ on the radio.”
Although ‘Changes’ had the most extraordinary material impact on his life, not just out of Bowie’s repertoire, it’s not Flowers’ favourite moment from the late singer’s career. During a Twitter Q&A in 2017, The Killers frontman selected a track from the Young Americans era as his favourite and explained: “From the ‘Young Americans’ sessions, there’s a song called ‘It’s Gonna Be Me’. It’s just a holy song. It’s not one of the most well-known Bowie songs, and I’m not just saying it to be cool, but I think you should check it out.”
As Flowers says, ‘It’s Gonna Be Me’ isn’t one of Bowie’s most famous songs, and it didn’t even make the final cut of Young Americans. Eventually, Bowie decided to release the project in 1991 when it appeared on a re-issued version of the LP with the inclusion of previously unheard tracks.
While Bowie didn’t officially release the track for decades after recording it, ‘It’s Gonna Be Me’ was regularly played on his Diamond Dogs tour and the Soul tour. Therefore, bootlegged versions began to make their way through his fanbase, and it made sense for Bowie to share the official recording later.
Speaking of the recording, producer Tony Visconti said: “‘It’s Gonna Be Me’, with or without the strings, is as classic as a classic soul song can get, but it was dropped from the newer version of The Gouster, the version we know as Young Americans. David’s vocal performance was a once-in-a-lifetime event.”
Listen below to Brandon Flowers’ favourite Bowie song, ‘It’s Gonna Be Me’.
