June 28th, 2015

MT: Thanks for allowing me to meet you here. I know you don’t really-

Bowie: It’s quite alright. I’ve managed to stay out of it all in my latter years, but one here and there is fine. Decent in fact. 

MT: Cheers. I’ll start with the obvious, do you miss the limelight? You were arguably the biggest star of the 70’s and 80’s. 

Bowie(Laughing): No, no, not in the slightest. But I allowed you here today because I suppose it’s more of the idea… the notion that I enjoy a good chat between two people, man, woman, what have you. I like a good chat, a great deal. There are many people on Earth. Just the concept of all of us living on the same planet, and not getting the opportunity to talk to each person is somewhat sad. So, when I get the chance to talk to someone I hadn’t before, it seems fine, pretty decent in fact. (Bowie grins.)

MT: I see. It must feel good to have your work seen by millions and billions of people on this planet.

Bowie: Sure. In a way I have the ability to speak to people I haven’t and will never meet in my lifetime. Somewhat sad, but the truth. Had a great deal of fun performing. Before the heart attack of course. But it was something I felt I was good at and I could connect to others in that way because of it. Real dionysian ecstasy of the seventies. Free love… all that. 

MT: Interesting times. You absolutely had no fear in the seventies.

Bowie: There’s always fear with anything you do. Some sort of inherent fear of doing the “weird.” It’s wonderful though. I loved that portion. Some queerness, gayness that I absolutely had a blast with. Old Ziggy Stardust. Would never work today. I’m much too old. 

MT: Did you ever feel as if your sexuality defined you as an artist? As a musician at that time it felt like people could be flamboyant, but as a solo act I feel as if it’s different. Were you ever afraid? 

Bowie: Somewhat. I mean John and Mercury were essentially solo acts that were as flamboyant if not more so than me. Not that it’s a competition. We were all fantastic. I felt as if the sexuality wasn’t defining me as much as my own music did. It still does. There was this idea of masculinity that was harvested after World War II. Mainly surrounding the idea of the nuclear family. The concept that every family should have a man, woman, and child. A kind of idyllic view of family and love. The man is out working, the wife cooks and cleans at home, and the child male or female would learn the domestic stereotypes of their parents. It’s all bullshit, but it was something people found themselves tied to. That’s where masculinity of it all comes in. This idea that masculinity was defined by males. These bland men were the form of masculinity and male toughness that society would be attracted to. 

MT: But you didn’t do that. 

Bowie: I’m not boring. At least not that boring. It wasn’t that I chose any of this either. I just had a desire to do so, as many have a desire to be boring. (He smirked here). I once read in a bookI found named  Female Masculinity that there is, “ a crucial relationship between language and desire such that language structures desire and express… both the fullness and the futility of human desire”(Halberstam 8). So just as the nuclear family was created due to a backlash from a world war, desire arose, and has always done so, through the lens of a relationship with the structure of society. Desire as well as the stereotypes could not have been created without language, otherwise we would just be all extinct by now or living in a meaningless society. No structure. No nothing. At the end of the day these desires manifest the type of person we become, whether it be straight, gay, bisexual, or what have you.

MT: It wasn’t a choice to be different and performative? 

Bowie: I mean it’s as much of a choice as how you present yourself, but I wanted to be bold and brash, and maybe a tad too fascist at the time, but without my desire back then, I couldn’t have truly found the niche that I did. 

MT: Quite the large niche. 

Bowie: It was. I felt like it was something that had to be done at some point. I had grown tired of seeing people in a post WWII world be tied down by such boring desires. Growing up, seeing the Beatles with their straight-edge bowl cuts and tight suits or Elvis with the big hair and tight suit. It was all very masculine. I somewhat played on that in “Boys Keep Swinging.” 

MT: That got a lot of backlash. 

Bowie: Who thought dressing like a 50’s heartthrob like Elvis would do that? 

MT: That’s not the part of the video many had a problem with. It’s the lack of masculinity in the chorus. 

Bowie: Is that right? I didn’t find that at all less masculine than the verse. In my eyes, “affirmations begin not by subverting masculine power or taking up a position against masculine power but by turning a blind eye to conventional masculinities and refusing to engage” (Halberstam 9). I felt as if I was not negating masculinity by dressing in drag, but perhaps seeing a new masculinity. Perhaps a female masculinity. The final woman that comes out in that video is incredibly regal. There is a wonderful sense of masculinity in that. The epitome of female masculinity, in my eyes, maybe not to others. But that’s the beauty of it all. 

MT: The beauty of what? 

Bowie: The beauty of masculinity. It has the ability it be looked at in different ways. Much like paintings by Pollock, there seems to be so many different ways to look at it. Look at everything. At least that’s what I gathered from the Halberstam book I read. 

MT: And you tried to put that in your work?

Bowie: You can look at it that way. There are so many ways to be and I think I reflected that in most of my work. If you look at it all. I tried to do a lot. Still doing a good amount in my older age. 

MT: I feel as…. Oh never mind. 

Bowie: No no what were you going to say? 

MT: Well… I was… don’t take offense to this, but I was never the biggest fan of yours growing up. Still not quite sure why…. But maybe it felt like you had too many ideas going on- 

Bowie: Because of my divirsety? 

MT: Precisely the differences in music, melody, all of that-

Bowie: I feel as if you haven’t looked into it enough. 

MT: I assure you I have.

Bowie: There’s subtleties throughout most, if not all, of my works that connect them. They’re all very much akin to one another. 

MT: How so? “Oh! You Pretty Things” and ''Quicksand” for example seem incredibly different. Even though they’re both from your early work. Don’t even get me started on those in relation to something like “Golden Years,” which is much more funk than anything else. Quite frankly it feels all over the place. 

Bowie: I think if you look at the lyrics and see, most of these songs can be connected to Nietzsche. His philosophy has been influenced throughout my life and into my older age. All of my lyrics are quite nihilistic. 

MT: Most of them are upbeat. 

Bowie: Doesn’t mean they’re bloody optimistic now does it? 

MT: I mean-

Bowie: I won’t dive into my own music and spell out for you, but all the songs you listed have rather provocative pessimistic lyrics. “Don’t believe in yourself, don't deceive with belief.”

MT: “Knowledge comes with….” Right well you’re-

Bowie: It all comes from Nietzchian philosophy. The dionysian and apollonian. In The Birth of Tragedy he explains these contrasting ideas. Apollonian is much more individual while dionsyian bliss is similar to say a crowd at a concert. Dionsyian is all about that ecstasy. 

MT: What does this have to do with nihilism? 

Bowie: I’m introducing you to his philosophy. It’s all connected in someway. This ties into why people, unlike you, followed me. My music was incredibly dionsyian in those days. It had a feeling of drunkenness and ecstasy. That’s the music part, right? The “upbeat” as you so eloquently put it earlier, yes?

MT: Right. 

Bowie: Now my lyrics are much more nihilistic, which is this idea that nothing really matters as it is currently. “Don’t believe in yourself” all of that. There’s this story that I adore from one of his writings, The Gay Science. It goes, “A demon… [says]: 'This life as you now live it and have lived it you will have to live once again and innumerable times again; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy”(Nietzsche 194). And he tells you this. This idea is both terrifying and lovely. As I age and get older, which is something I am constantly working through I might add, I find myself revisiting this story. I think about the last breath I’ll take and where I may very well reset my life, all the way from the beginning. It’s truly a fascinating concept. And well would you do that? Would you like to know that you live your life over and over again or simply live in blissful ignorance of what happens next?

MT: I’m not sure. 

Bowie: It’s a very nihilistic view of the world. That we live this boring and futile life for eternity but we don’t know it. It’s a circle. So in my eyes that’s precisely the reason I stay diverse. Even if I live an eternity in the same life, my choices are at least somewhat interesting. These ideas of nihilism are ingrained in my lyrics. The very concept of a song is this. You have verses, but you are continually finding yourself saying the same chorus for eternity. 

MT: Eternity can be frightening. 

Bowie: Terrifying. Quite right, but it's refreshing to know that my music might very well live onto that. True eternity, not a cyclical one. I’m not some young Ziggy Stardust anymore. My time is surely coming. 

​

​

​

​

​

​

 

 

 

 

 

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

MT: Are you okay with that? 

Bowie: In some ways I am. In some ways I’m not. I’m sure you’ll go back through all of this and see how much I’ve contradicted myself. But as of now, I feel pretty good about it all. I mean what do I have to fear? Nietzche famously said God is dead and, “We have killed him”(Nietzche 120). It’s not so much that we actually killed God, but the fact that we have killed him through our sinful actions. It is time to create something new, which could be a plethora of different occurrences, but it’s for ourselves to decide, whatever we feel is the best way possible. 

MT: How do you do that, David? 

Bowie: I like to think I do that through my work, I strive for diversity. 

MT: It’s interesting that you’ve kept discussing the idea of diversity as a white man you haven’t got much. 

Bowie: (He smiles) I’d like to imagine the diversity in my work is different than my ideology on race. I think everyone should be equal, I suppose. We’re all homosapiens on this rotating orb. 

MT: What about the “Young Americans” era of music?

Bowie: What about it? 

MT: Lot of it came from African-American funk.

Bowie: I don’t think I was stealing if that’s what you’re insinuating. This is why I don’t like to discuss things like this. Frankly, I’m not terribly in love with a lot of those songs anymore. Therein that’s the reason I don’t play them anymore. 

MT: I find that portion of your career probably the most fascinating as it is truly different, in my eyes. Everything seems as if it is ripping off black culture, honestly. Margo Jefferson wrote once that, “Elvis Presley was the greatest minstrel America ever spawned, and he appeared in bold whiteface”(Jefferson 50). I am not here to say that you were a minstrel throughout your career, but “Young Americans” seems as if you were almost doing the exact thing that Elvis was doing. It’s not like he had to have blackface on, it was more the style of his music. He took some songs and danced like blacks without giving any credit. Furthermore-

Bowie: Hold on. What is this about? Me? Or Elvis? Are you trying to get me to admit something that’s false? 

MT: Is it? 

Bowie: I believe that one can be inspired by other races and artists. I never look at any of my songs as solely my own creation. There’s a line from The Beatles in “Young Americans.” I’ve only wanted equality and when I came to America, I was fascinated by all of the diversity here. 

MT: It seems like a strange jump to make from one album to the next and that’s not even discussing your facisit era. 

Bowie: It’s about diversifying my portfolio. I try a little this and that, but it’s all for the love of music. I find myself constantly changing and challenging myself. I’ve always wanted equality for all people as well. I wanted to show the world that it is okay to be different and in fact it is wonderful. In “Heroes” I suggest that “we can be heroes just for one day.” Whatever that means to you. If we can love one another-

MT: That’s very nice of you to say but- 

Bowie: Listen, I think we’ve gone off track a tad. I’m not a minstrel as you might be insinuating. More recently, I’ve been reading this new book that’s all about the concept of “black nihilism” this is different than my early discussion as it focuses on black society and self more so than one’s own personal ideology about the world. There’s a lot of rejection in this.  The author Warren writes that, “To refuse to “do politics” and to reject the fantastical object of politics is the only “hope” for blackness in an anti-black world.” This is what you’re doing now. Rejecting my notion of inspiration. I just think his claims and your claims are bullshit. I think that black nihilism in general is an important concept. The idea that these people have been persecuted and tortured for so long and that there is no solution today. Just three years ago, Trayvon Martin was murdered and his murderer got off scot-free just as the Till murderers nearly six decades before. The solution stated in this book is to reject all of it. I don’t think you could get anywhere with that. That’s not my idea of nihilism of any sort. There is some sort of solution in creating something new and wonderful. That is what we should strive for here. I’m not taking so much as creating something new. Something that incorporates some of this and that. People want to create something new. That’s different for everyone, but for me, it is through my own music and how I presented myself and continue to present myself. 

MT: And how’s that, David?

Bowie: It’s strange- weird- I feel like I wanted to engage the public in a different way than most rockstars did. Not through my masculinity, but through my strange performances and outlandish sets. How I wish to live my life for eternity is like that. And there’s some acceptance to my weirdness in that. Love too. 

​