Johnny Marr discusses David Bowie’s most “overlooked” masterpiece
For any Johnny Marr fans, getting the seal of approval from one of the greatest guitarists of all time must be like being granted acceptance from the heavens above. The 61-year-old former Smiths member has forged an illustrious career for himself ever since the 1980s, both within the band and in his own right. Of course, however, the guitar hero didn’t gain his talents out of thin air – there was a long line of similarly God-like rockers who came before him, all in their own way inspiring a young Marr to pick up his first six-string and set him on the path to stardom.
In a previous interview, Marr named a load of his favourite songs, in everything from T-Rex to Iggy Pop, but also an “overlooked” masterpiece by one David Bowie that he argued deserved more credit. That would be ‘The Jean Genie’, released in 1972 as the precursor lead single to the album Aladdin Sane the following year. According to Marr, the song represents the best of the best.
“I wanted to mention this record because it’s almost taken for granted in David Bowie’s canon as just ‘there’s another great Bowie track’, yet it gets overlooked by something like ‘Let’s Dance’ or ‘Heroes,’” he explained. But what exactly makes it so special? “I was about 10 when it was released and to me and a bunch of kids experiencing it then it was so modern, because of what Bowie’s doing on top of what is essentially a Yardbirds or a Muddy Waters riff and using ‘The Jean Genie’, which back then was such a hip kind of slang. It’s a play on Jean Genet and he’s describing bits he’d picked up from Iggy, but in the early 70s’ everything was ‘Ziggy’, ‘Iggy’, ‘Genie’ and people were called ‘Mick’ and ‘Stevie’.”
Bowie was no doubt the epitome of effortless cool, with an iconic image and voice to boot – and he was not afraid to use it. In the case of ‘The Jean Genie’, Marr delved into the rockstar’s impervious persona and the effect it has on the song, saying: “If this came out now I don’t think it’d have any chance on mainstream radio and I think that’s because – and this might be incredibly subjective – he does this amazing thing where he manages to be completely remote whilst leading this band,” he enthused.
It’s this attribute that truly makes the song stand out for Marr. “It’s a really genius performance, the way he pitches his vocal and his persona, it’s cold and remote, but yet really sexy and it’s got no earnestness in it whatsoever. It’s not inciting you to get up and rock like ‘Jailhouse Rock’ or any of the Elvis Presley records.”
Overall, as the guitarist makes clear, the mark of the genius in ‘The Jean Genie’ is not the musicality of the song itself but the persona Bowie channels through it. In terms of the era, it hit the nail on the head of a culture a young Marr was increasingly becoming aware of, which he described as “a very urban, street Rock and Roll that was quite illicit; the threat of drugs, danger, confused sexuality and super-androgyny and the character he’s singing about personifies that in the mind.”
You could argue that any Bowie record exemplifies him in his prime, and with such an iconic back catalogue, any of them would be valid, but you can make a good case for Marr here. ‘The Jean Genie’ was a pivotal song in expanding his rock horizons and opening up to a world he would later go on to dominate. In that sense, we have a lot to thank it for – we might not have Johnny Marr without it.
