‘Suffragette City’: The sure-fire David Bowie hit that never was
While there’s absolutely nothing wrong with writing a song for another artist and letting them take all the plaudits, David Bowie has, on numerous occasions, tried to fob off some of his best material to others.
It’s a rather well-established fact that ‘All the Young Dudes’, which was a massive hit for Mott the Hoople in 1972, was a gift from Bowie, who was so distraught to learn that the band were on the verge of separating that he chose to write them a song in the hope that it would be a success and keep them together. However, while this is perhaps the most famous instance of him attempting to donate his work to another act, there have been plenty of other Bowie classics that almost found their way into the hands of others.
His 1975 track, ‘Golden Years’, was originally written in the hope that Elvis Presley would accept the offer of recording it, and while it’s easy to see where he may have been coming from in terms of its suitability for what Elvis was doing at that time, it’s also hard to imagine it being performed by anyone other that Bowie’s own coked-up persona, the Thin White Duke.
There was also a period where Bowie was frequently writing material for Iggy Pop at the start of his post-Stooges solo career, with notable tracks like ‘China Girl’, ‘Lust for Life’ and ‘Nightclubbing’ all having come from the mind of the illustrious British songwriter. However, there’s one track from earlier in his career that, while he ended up having a hit with, he was evidently eager to pass it on and let someone else have their fun with it.
‘Suffragette City’ is the perfect penultimate track for Ziggy Stardust, fully embracing the rock and roll attitude of his fictitious alien alter ego, and brings the energy of the entire album up to full throttle before it reaches its sublime closing moment of ‘Rock and Roll Suicide’, but as perfectly suited as the track may have been for Bowie, it would appear from the outside that he was never too enthusiastic about the track.
Before his generous donation of ‘All the Young Dudes’, Bowie had offered up ‘Suffragette City’ to Mott the Hoople as well, with bassist Pete Watts personally contacting Bowie a month after they’d received his demo to politely refuse it on the basis that it didn’t feel like the right fit for them. Granted, Watts was probably correct to decline the offer, since Bowie would end up passing on something far more fit for them to take on, but had they taken it for themselves, then at least it would have experienced life as a single.
Instead, clearly not realising just how timeless the track he’d written was and how it almost presaged the entire punk movement, Bowie ended up putting it out as the B-side to ‘Starman’, which while having a greater amount of commercial appeal, isn’t necessarily any greater or inferior to ‘Suffragette City’, which simply showcases another side to what Bowie was capable of during this fruitful era.
It wasn’t until 1976, four years after it had appeared alongside ‘Starman’ and on Ziggy Stardust, that ‘Suffragette City’ would actually get its deserved treatment from Bowie, when it was released as a promotional single in conjunction with the release of his first greatest hits compilation, Changesonebowie. However, this delayed release, along with the lack of fanfare with which he chose to release it, meant that it narrowly missed out on reaching the top 50 in the UK, the only country where it was officially released as a single.
There’s no denying that ‘Suffragette City’ is perhaps one of Bowie’s greatest songs, and one that has become a fan favourite in the years since its release, but at the same time, it’s perhaps the one song that he criminally overlooked, never allowing it to have its deserved acclaim in the charts.
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