The song that inspired David Bowie’s ‘Rebel Rebel’
The story goes that in the 1970s, David Bowie gave an early recording of ‘Rebel Rebel’ to Rodney Bingenheimer at the infamous LA glam nightclub Rodney’s English Disco. The crowd, upon catching wind that they were hearing Bowie’s new song, all took to the dancefloor and started boogying. The track has continued to affect people, as there are few places you could go where that song wouldn’t light up a room. The inspiration behind it, though, is a rather tricky affair.
Never one to underestimate his own ability, Bowie can get to what is infectious about the song relatively quickly. “It’s a fabulous riff! Just fabulous,” he said, “When I stumbled onto it, it was ‘Oh, thank you!’” That riff alone is why many guitarists started to learn the instrument in the first place, and it is the catchy part of the song that continues to fill dance floors. Where did it come from? According to Bowie, two floors up in the dead of night.
“One night, I was in London in a hotel trying to get some sleep. It was quite late, like 11 or 12 at night, and I had some big deal thing on the next day, a TV show or something,” he said. “I heard this riff being played really badly from upstairs. I thought, ‘Who the hell is doing this at this time of night?’ On an electric guitar, over and over. So I went upstairs to show the person how to play the thing.”
Bowie continued: “I bang on the door. The door opens, and I say, ‘Listen, if you’re going to play…’ and it was John McEnroe! I kid you not. It was McEnroe, who saw himself as some sort of rock guitar player at the time. That could only happen in a movie, couldn’t it? McEnroe trying to struggle his way through the ‘Rebel Rebel’ riff.”
The inspiration behind the lyrics to the song is where things start to get a bit hazy. David Bowie was never afraid to blur the lines between genders in his outfits, especially those that he wore for his Ziggy Stardust persona; as such, the opening line of “You’ve got your mother in a whirl / She’s not sure if you’re a boy or a girl,” seem to be pretty reflective. However, there are a few songs that might have inspired Bowie when writing these lyrics.
One is the 1973 track, ‘Queenage Baby’, by Jayne County, which contained the line, “Can’t tell whether she’s a boy or a girl”. County still attests that Bowie stole her song, stating: “I was recording songs for MainMan, and they were all sent to Bowie because he was supposedly ‘interested’ in producing me. All he did was steal my ideas!”
County continued: “Bowie called MainMan and played his ‘Rebel Rebel’ demo over the phone, and Cherry Vanilla screamed, ‘Oh my God, he’s trying to sound like Jayne! How are we going to tell him?’ … I was FLABBERGASTED! And I was helpless to do anything! It just gnawed at my insides like a rat gnawing away at my stomach.”
While many people seem to think that some of the lyrics were inspired by ‘Queenage Baby’, there is also a theory that George Formby’s 1939 song ‘Grandad’s Flannelette Nightshire’ might have played its part. The song includes the line, “Down at the church they were in a whirl / No one seemed to know if I were boy or girl.”
It seems fitting that one of Bowie’s favourite songs is as elusive as the man who wrote it. While the genuine inspiration behind Bowie’s ‘Rebel Rebel’ is up for debate, what isn’t is the track’s power and that it is one of the best Bowie ever produced.
