The David Bowie songs David Bowie hated
As music’s foremost chameleon, David Bowie was an artist with many guises who explored more forms than any other of his stature. Yet, given his very famous commitment to never resting on his laurels and quickly moving into an untried sonic realm, this focus on the future would sometimes change the nature of his past efforts for him, meaning that some songs loved by fans, he despised, as to him, they represented cringe-inducing misfires.
Bowie was his own harshest critic, and this fueled his entire career, from his early days as a floundering wannabe star to the intensely cerebral artist he was in his final form. A sagacious character, he had a great sense of the world around him, and once he found his feet in the early 1970s, he would continue to hone his craft and be at the forefront of musical innovation. This, coupled with the fact that excellent artists are inherently restless types, would see Bowie publicly slam a handful of tracks from across his timeline that he regarded with disdain, as they were not up to his very high standards.
Arguably, the number that Bowie despised most intensely from his oeuvre was ‘Young Americans’, the title track and lead single from his 1975 album of the same name, a soul effort. A rather upbeat and innocuous song that stands out in Bowie’s back catalogue, he would openly state that he “loathed” it and that the only effort he liked on the entire album was ‘Win’, which comes despite working with the eminent John Lennon on the second single ‘Fame’. He retired ‘Young Americans’ for good after his 1990 greatest hits tour, Sound + Vision.
The most surprising cut that Bowie despised was ‘Space Oddity’, the 1969 UK hit that set him up for the success of the ensuing decade and confirmed that he was a songwriter of great substance, with it ironically tapping into the space-obsessed nature of the era. An absolute masterstroke that put him firmly on the musical map with its catchy lyrics and jazzy melody, the track has long been deemed one of his definitive efforts, but Bowie hated it. Even his longtime friend and producer Tony Visconti dubbed it a “cheap shot” and a “gimmick” that cashed in on the space race, with the two regularly joking about how it became a hit years later, as they had no faith in it at its inception.
Bowie played the song during the Diamond Dogs tour of 1974, but it was left out in the cold until he revived it for the record-breaking Serious Moonlight dates in 1983. Of course, he would later soften his stance on the track and dub it a “very good song” that arrived too early because he didn’t have any material of substance to follow it up with at the time.
The late 1980s marked the lowest point in Bowie’s career since his early days. While 1983’s Let’s Dance catapulted him to global superstardom, he struggled to follow it up with the same creative vigour, becoming increasingly disillusioned with the shallow, commercial side of the industry. Though 1984’s Tonight had some redeeming qualities, its successor, Never Let Me Down, is widely regarded as Bowie’s career low point. Even Bowie himself referred to the album as the “nadir” of his career, calling it simply “awful”.
It’s no surprise, then, that Bowie loathed one particular track from the record, ‘Too Dizzy’, with a passion. Co-written with Erdal Kizilcay, the song became an embarrassment for the Starman, as it heavily leaned into the keys-driven, yuppie zeitgeist of the era. Its sound was so far removed from Bowie’s usual style that he even joked the track would have been better suited to Huey Lewis. The song’s presence on Never Let Me Down was a clear indication of Bowie’s dissatisfaction with the direction his music had taken during that period.
“That’s jealousy, isn’t it. A real jealous song,” Bowie explained to Music & Sound Output in 1987. “It’s a throwaway! I always thought it was better for Huey Lewis [laughs]! I was unsettled with that song, but it’s on the album anyway.”
The last song that Bowie loathed but could not escape was 1967’s ‘The Laughing Gnome’, which is by far his back catalogue’s most incredible oddity. The novelty track might have become a cult moment since its original release and even hit number six in the UK charts when the label, Deram, reissued it in 1973, hoping to cash in one Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust fame, but for a long time, it remained the spectre of the desperate time when Bowie was trying anything to get famous.
Like all his fans, Bowie reappraised the track later in life, telling Uncut in 1999, “I had to get over that a long time ago,” and conceding that “history is all revisionism”. However, his open attempt to mimic the style of Anthony Newley with its comical lyrics and the interplay between Bowie and the high-pitched Gnome – the sped-up vocals of engineer Gus Dudgeon – remains absolutely mind-boggling.
Reflecting on the messy nature of the track in Q in 1990, Bowie said: “Aarrghh, God, that Anthony Newley stuff, how cringey. No, I haven’t much to say about that in its favour. Lyrically I guess it was really striving to be something, the short story teller. Musically it’s quite bizarre. I don’t know where I was at.”
The songs David Bowie hated:
- ‘Young Americans’
- ‘Space Oddity’
- ‘Too Dizzy’ (*not on Spotify)
- ‘The Laughing Gnome’
