The Mott the Hoople song that kicks back at David Bowie
David Bowie almost singlehandedly saved the career of Mott the Hoople. Just as the hard rockers were about to call it quits in 1972, Bowie encouraged them to stay together and even wrote a song for them: ‘Suffragette City’. The band turned him down, but Bowie was insistent on helping them and went back to the drawing board.
When he approached the band again, he had a new song to give them (‘Suffragette City’ wound up on Bowie’s own The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars). ‘All the Young Dudes’ was an apocalyptic ballad that changed the trajectory of Mott the Hoople’s career. Peaking at number three on the UK Singles Chart, ‘All the Young Dudes’ pushed Mott into the Bowie-dominated world of glam rock, with Bowie producing the band’s subsequent parent album, also titled All the Young Dudes.
But by the following year, Mott the Hoople had tired of appearing in Bowie’s shadow. Lead singer Ian Hunter especially bristled at the perception that the band depended on Bowie’s assistance. For their follow-up to All the Young Dudes, 1973’s Mott, Hunter, and then-recently-departed keyboardist Verden Allen penned a sardonic continuation track entitled ‘Hymn for the Dudes’.
Throughout the track, Hunter takes different jabs at Bowie over his search for fame and perceived lack of true substance (“you are such a sly clown, too many questions, no replies now”). Hunter seems especially eager to see Bowie fail when he proclaims, “Go tell the superstar/ All his hairs are turning grey/ Star-spangled fear/ As all the people disappear/ The limelight fades away.”
Just before the song’s instrumental breakdown, Hunter makes the allusions clear by referencing lyrics to Bowie’s ‘Ziggy Stardust’. “You ain’t the Nazz/ You’re just a buzz/ Some kinda temporary”. In the biography All the Young Dudes, Hunter told Campbell Devine that Bowie’s only goal was “draining what he wants before moving on to the next victim.”
During his solo shows, Hunter could be heard modifying the lyrics to refer to Bowie as “Some kinda temporary twat.” All told, he was less-than-enthusiastic about the constant Bowie presence in his life. By 1974, he had finally used up all his goodwill in the band and departed Mott the Hoople.
Hunter remained close to Bowie guitarist Mick Ronson and eventually mended his relationship with the Starman enough to perform with him at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert in 1992. When Bowie himself died in 2016, Hunter dedicated the song ‘Dandy’ to him in his album Fingers Crossed that same year.
Check out ‘Hymn for the Dudes’ down below.
