Elvis Costello’s favourite David Bowie songs
Coming up during the age of punk abrasion, Elvis Costello was the archetypal angry young man of the 1970s, penning a litany of sneering confrontations and furious social realism, even if he never donned safety pins or bondage trousers, and never abandoned the pre-punk songwriters that first inspired him, like David Bowie.
Punk might have adopted an ethos of burning down the musical establishment and rebuilding from the rubble, but Bowie was always an exception to the rule. He was, after all, among the most revolutionary songwriters this scissored isle has ever produced, and the Ziggy Stardust glam era, which ushered in the 1970s, was just as otherworldly and in opposition to the status quo as most self-respecting punks hoped to be. On a deeper level, though, Bowie’s songwriting talents were utterly unparalleled.
Costello, right from his earliest recordings with Stiff during the punk boom, always prioritised songwriting quality above all else; hence why he never subscribed to the faddy fashion of punk or the kind of gimmicks adopted by some of his Stiff comrades. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that Costello was a natural disciple of Bowie, particularly during those early years.
Like any self-respecting music obsessive, the ‘Pump It Up’ songwriter certainly has his favourites, and back in the year 2000, he sat down with Vanity Fair to discuss his 500 favourite albums. Alongside the likes of Jimmy Cliff, Leonard Cohen, and his punk brethren The Clash, the list also featured a healthy focus on the mastery of David Bowie.
Hunky Dory was the first Bowie album to make Costello’s list, which isn’t much of a surprise given that it was – arguably – Bowie’s first truly great album, both in terms of commercial success and songwriting genius. From that album, Costello plucked the defining effort ‘Life On Mars?’ as his favourite, although that single was seemingly where Costello’s appreciation for Bowie’s glam efforts ceased.
Given that Bowie’s famed Berlin trilogy shared a lot in common with the art school side of the punk rock spectrum, the albums from that era tend to pop up a lot in the record collections of punk’s architects, and Costello is no different. In addition to selecting ‘Wild Is The Wind’ from Station To Station, a project which predicted the later sounds carved on in the concrete confines of the German capital, the songwriter also highlighted two often underrated efforts from Low and Heroes, respectively.
From Low, the album that ushered in one of the greatest trilogies in musical history, Costello opted for ‘Always Crashing in the Same Car’, penned in the wake of one of Bowie’s drug-fueled rampages which involved destroying a drug dealer’s car (and his own, in the process) before joyriding with his close comrade, Iggy Pop, by his side.
Costello chose a more upbeat and endearingly abrasive track from the follow-up, Heroes, in the form of ‘Joe the Lion’, the songwriter’s ode to Chris Burden and his bizarre performance art pieces. With the guitar stylings of Robert Fripp forming a core part of the song’s appeal, the track is the kind of collaboration that folks like Elvis Costello cannot help but dream about.
Ultimately, it is probably no coincidence that the majority of Costello’s all-time favourite David Bowie songs originated from a time when the thick-rimmed songwriter was at the beginning of his own musical journey, particularly given just how influential the Berlin trilogy was on the development of punk and post-punk in the years that followed.
Elvis Costello’s favourite David Bowie songs:
- ‘Life on Mars?’
- ‘Wild Is the Wind’
- ‘Always Crashing in the Same Car’
- ‘Joe the Lion’
