The David Bowie song he thought sounded arrogant: “Baiting an audience”
Rock and roll has never been a genre known for humility. For everyone just happy to hear that people like their music, there are just as many who claim that they are God’s gift to songwriters everywhere and will stop at nothing to deliver the best rock and roll songs that anyone has ever heard. Although David Bowie could have justifiably considered himself a musical legend, he admitted that ‘Changes’ was where his ego almost got too out of proportion.
If anything, it would have been brash for Bowie to be calling his shot at all after his first handful of releases. ‘Space Oddity’ was obviously a big frontrunner for his solo catalogue, but since The Man Who Sold the World got a bit lost in the shuffle, he was almost coming close to being a one-hit wonder, no different than the Norman Greenbaums of the world.
Bowie knew that he had something, and his androgynous angle first came out in full force on Hunky Dory. While he already had the distinction of wearing a dress on the Man Who Sold the World cover, Bowie fully embraced going against the gender norms on the album, including seeing things beyond Earth’s atmosphere on ‘Life on Mars?’.
Every piece of the album was meant to be a new creative endeavour, but if there were one song that could practically serve as Bowie’s theme music, it would have to be ‘Changes’. The entire ethos behind his career was about challenging everyone’s perception of music and making a piece based on going against the grain, said everything that most people needed to hear.
It didn’t come without a fair bit of cheeky claims, though. Aside from being one of Bowie’s catchiest songs, he seemed to take a few cues from Bob Dylan with the lyrics, speaking for his entire generation as he tells the adults of the world to look out for what’s coming next.
Looking back, Bowie thought that he might have been going a little overboard with calling his shot, telling Rolling Stone, “I guess it was more being sort of arrogant. It’s sort of baiting an audience, saying, ‘Look, I’m going to be so fast, you’re not going to keep up with me.’” Then again, it’s not like he was wrong.
For the next few years, Bowie was the archetype for what a musical chameleon should be. Although he may have adopted the same kind of madcap glam aesthetic that would one day conquer the music scene with bands like T Rex, his knack for turning on a dime towards something new made him one of the few artists who could try on any style and somehow make it work.
If anything, there’s a good case to be made that that arrogance came with some of the greatest bravery any musician ever had. It’s not easy trying to put together a distinct style and then tear everything down to start again, but Bowie was always willing to do right by his art rather than make something comfortable for his fans.
