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971 FM The Drive presents

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the Behind the Song podcast.

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Taking you deeper into classic

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rock's most timeless tunes. Here's

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your host, Janda. It took

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David Bowie until his fourth

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album to find his footing

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as an artist. Hunky Dory is

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a collection of songs written after

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he realized that he wasn't really

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one thing or another when it

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came to musical styles. Certainly not

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a folk musician, which is what

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he was pigeonholed as up to

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that point. In many ways, this

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is where Rock's greatest chameleon began

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to evolve. It took his first

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trip to America to change the

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way he approached his songwriting, and

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when he returned home to England

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after that U.S. tour, he sat

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down at the piano to give a

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voice to the musical styles colliding within

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him. And at just 24 years old,

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he wrote the song that would foreshadow

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the rest of his life and career.

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changes. Let's get into the story in

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this episode of the Behind the Song

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guaranteed to fit every time By 1971,

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Bowie was almost seven years into

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his career. While he had established

2:05

himself with space oddity, he had

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stalled out on the charts otherwise.

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When he was booked on an

2:11

American tour early that year, he

2:13

was still very much an artist

2:16

who was looking to break ground

2:18

and make a mark. which he

2:20

certainly did with the press by

2:22

wearing a dress to interviews, shaking

2:24

up gender roles, and in general,

2:27

making sure that he was unforgettable

2:29

to the critics. That was also

2:31

the tour where he met Andy

2:33

Warhol, who inspired Bowie to write

2:36

a song named after him on

2:38

Hunky-Dory, and Lou Reed, who inspired

2:40

Queen Bitch on the same album.

2:42

These two characters, along with Bowie's

2:44

new friend Iggy Pop, would have

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a profound impact on how he

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approached his art in the immediate

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years to come. By the summer

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of 1971, when he was back

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home in England, he also became

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a father for the first time

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when his son Duncan Zoee Haywood

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Jones, shortened to Zoee Bowie, was

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born to him and his first

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wife, the wildly chaotic Angie, Angie,

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that May. The song Kooks on

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Hunke Dory, is for Duncan, which

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is the name he goes by

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now. With Bowie writing, for Small

3:18

Z beside it on the track

3:20

listing on the back cover. So

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1971 was really a momentous year

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for him both personally and professionally.

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That trip to America really opened

3:29

his eyes up to switching things

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around musically. In his words, what

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would it sound like if he

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took the theatrical and the cabaret

3:38

and mixed it up with Little

3:40

Richard and the velvet underground? The

3:42

world was about to find out.

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He also ditched writing on his

3:46

acoustic guitar on this album, which

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he had previously done, opting to

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write by ear on an old

3:53

grand piano instead. Because Bowie played

3:55

by ear and the... was in

3:57

his first instrument. When it came

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time to record the collection of

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songs he'd written, he brought in

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a ringer to play the piano

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parts. Rick Wakeman, who had provided

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piano on Bowie's previous only hit,

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Space Oddity, and was a sought-after

4:13

session musician, who, of course, ultimately

4:15

joined the band, yes. Wakeman told

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classic rock magazine that Bowie knew

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what he wanted and would pick

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musicians he felt could achieve it.

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That would be true of picking

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Wakeman and later Luther Vandras and

4:28

Stevie Ray Vahn. All musicians at

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the top of their game, who

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Bowie recognized as real talent and

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brought on to his musical projects

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before they were widely known. Because

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the piano is central to hunky-dory,

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Rick Wakeman's expertise behind the keys

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is one of the reasons it

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sounds so perfect. Wakeman remembers telling

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Bowie while they were recording it

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that this particular record will still

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be around and important long after

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you and I are gone. The

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other personnel on the album will

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be familiar to Bowie fans too.

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The three who would form the

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nucleus of the Spiders from Mars

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Band appear on hunky-dory. The late

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Mick Ronson, who played guitar and

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also skillfully arranged the strings on

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changes on Life on Mars and

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on other songs on the album.

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Woody Woodman Seon drums and the

5:19

late Trevor Boulder on bass and

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trumpet. Bowie himself played saxophone, which

5:24

was his first instrument, along with

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some guitar, and as he noted

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in the liner notes, the less

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complicated piano parts, followed by the

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word inability in parentheses. He had

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wakeman for that. Recorded at Trident

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Studios in London in the summer

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of 1971. Woodmancy recalled that Bowie

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didn't like doing more than three

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takes of a song, so the

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energy wouldn't be compromised. Ken Scott

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was brought back as the co-producer

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for Hunky-Dory, having engineered two of

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Bowie's earlier albums and with years

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of Abbey Road experience with the

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Beatles under his belt. So, with

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this group... You have the production

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talents and musicians that would evolve

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with Bowie on his next chapter,

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The Starmaking, Ziggy Stardust. Everything about

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hunky-dory was pivotal. It's the album

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that bridged the gap between Bowie

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as an artist struggling to find

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his ground to becoming a superstar.

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He said that it was the

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first album that provided what he

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felt was an actual audience for

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his songs, and it's the cornerstone

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for everything that would come next.

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So it's fitting that the first

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track is changes. The lyrics basically

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form the arc of everything that

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Bowie would do from this point

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on, and they go like this.

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Still don't know what I was

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waiting for, and my time was

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running wild, a million dead-end streets,

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and every time I thought I'd

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got it made, it seemed the

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taste was not so sweet. So

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I turned myself to face me,

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but I've never caught a glimpse.

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How the others must see the

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faker. I'm much too fast to

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take that test. Changes. Turn and

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face the strange. Don't want to

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be a richer man. There's going

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to have to be a different

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man. Time may change me, but

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I can't trace time. Three albums,

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and as he put it, a

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million dead-end streets behind him, Bowie

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embraced the very thing that would

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define him for the rest of

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his totally iconic career. Change. It

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takes courage to do that. The

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ability to take risks, which he

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would do over and over again

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with each new character that he

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introduced, unlike any other artist at

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any other time in rock history,

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Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin, Halloween, Jack, the

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thin white duke, and on, and

7:43

on. By turning to face the

7:45

strange, he met himself. By calling

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out the faker, he opened the

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door to what would later become

7:52

the cracked actor on the Aladdin

7:54

Sane album. recognizing that he was

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a kind of character acrobat giving

7:59

each new version of himself and

8:01

story to tell as he invented

8:03

them. And when he sings, time

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may change me, but I can't

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trace time, it seems like a

8:10

funny way to put saying that

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time changes everyone, but there's just

8:14

no way to reverse it, to

8:16

trace it backward. Time just keeps

8:19

moving forward. And the next part

8:21

goes like this. I watch the

8:23

ripples change their size, but never

8:25

leave the stream of warm impermanence.

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And so the days float through

8:30

my eyes, but still the days

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seem the same. And these children

8:34

that you spit on, as they

8:36

try to change their worlds, are

8:39

immune to your consultations. They're quite

8:41

aware of what they're going through.

8:43

Changes. Turn and face the strange.

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Don't tell them to grow up

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and out of it. Changes. Where's

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your shame? You've left us up

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to our necks in it. Time

8:54

may change me, but you can't

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trace time. This is the part

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of the song that gave young

9:01

people a rallying hero, a voice

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that understood them. John Hughes even

9:05

included part of these lyrics on

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screen as a sort of mission

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statement for the movie The Breakfast

9:12

Club, so perfectly did they sum

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up the weirdness about being a

9:16

teenager. Ripples in the stream, getting

9:18

bigger, coming into their own. I'll

9:21

also offer that the sentiment behind

9:23

Bowie singing These Children that you

9:25

spit on are immune to your

9:27

consultations in changes made way for

9:29

Kurt Cobain to write I got

9:32

a new complaint forever in debt

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to your priceless advice in Nirvana's

9:36

heart-shaped box. Two ways of saying,

9:38

no thanks, I got this. And

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the song winds down with our

9:43

narrator giving in to metamorphosis. Strange

9:45

fascinations fascinate me. Changes are taking

9:47

the pace I'm going through. The

9:49

pace I'm going through, not the

9:52

place. And that's important because the

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space he's in isn't relevant. It's

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the time the journey takes to

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get to the next... destination. At

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the end of changes, Bowie asks

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us again to turn and face

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the strange. He says, look out

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you rock and rollers. Pretty soon

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now you're going to get older.

10:11

As if to say, get on

10:14

with it. To his audience and

10:16

to himself at the ripe old

10:18

age of 24 when he wrote

10:20

this. And the song ends. Time

10:23

may change me, but I can't

10:25

trace time. The Emmy Award winning

10:27

series Slow Horses as critics and

10:29

audiences raving. Could be this as

10:31

a one off. Full start is

10:34

something. Receiving two screen actors Guild

10:36

Award nominations, including Best Ensemble in

10:38

a Drama Series. I'm gonna fix

10:40

this. Yeah, lovely. And Gary Oldman

10:42

for Outstanding Lead Actor. You're no

10:45

good at this. And a PGA

10:47

Award nomination for Outstanding Producer of

10:49

Episotic Television. That's it, Phil, of

10:51

getting your hands dirty. Don't miss

10:54

slow horses, now streaming on Apple

10:56

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11:23

going backward. Only forward for David

11:26

Bowie. And with this, the Star

11:28

Man had lift off. While hunky-dory

11:30

didn't chart, and in fact, RCA

11:32

Records didn't really put in a

11:34

lot of effort to promote changes

11:36

as a single, this body of

11:38

work really clicked with David Bowie's

11:41

true audience. and helps to pave

11:43

the way for him to go

11:45

from an artist who had his

11:47

first surprise hit, Space Oddity, a

11:49

weird song about space travel lining

11:51

up historically with when man first

11:54

walked on the moon, to becoming

11:56

a worldwide supernova rock star, a

11:58

cult figure. his next album, The

12:00

Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stard

12:02

and The Spiders from Mars. David

12:04

Bowie said that the hunky-dory album

12:06

gave him the sense that he

12:09

could do anything, and with changes,

12:11

he literally wrote the mission statement

12:13

for the rest of his career,

12:15

artistic reinvention, not being afraid to

12:17

outpace the mainstream, as he did

12:19

many times over the decades that

12:22

followed. It's an anthem of freedom

12:24

about not going backwards, only forwards

12:26

in whatever form that takes, as

12:28

he would later reference in the

12:30

lyrics of Golden Years, when he

12:32

wrote the line, Never Look Back,

12:34

Walk Tall, Act Fine. When Bowie

12:37

turned to face the strange on

12:39

the song Changes, he became the

12:41

artist he wanted to be and

12:43

remained that artist until his last

12:45

day on earth, ever changing. So

12:47

what other songs about changing strike

12:49

a chord like this? Something to

12:52

think about until next time. I'm

12:54

Janda, and this has been behind

12:56

this song. If you like this

12:58

episode, give it a like and

13:00

subscribe to the channel. Special thanks

13:02

as always to Christian Lane for

13:05

the music you hear on these

13:07

podcast episodes. You can find me

13:09

on the air at 97-1 FM

13:11

the Drive in Chicago and at

13:13

WDRV.com. On the way, much more

13:15

class rock and roll.