David Bowie was a man who lived a life filled
to the brim with adventure, mystery, and hair-spray.
During his time here on Earth, the Starman
accomplished more in a decade of his career
than most could in five lifetimes.
For this reason, even fans of Bowie aren’t
aware of the full scope of the kind of crazy
crap he got up to during his half-century-long
career.
10.
He didn’t know how to pronounce his own
name, which he had previously changed twice
Born David Robert Jones, Bowie decided to
change his name early in his career to Tom
Jones in 1965 to avoid being mistaken for
Monkees singer Davy Jones.
Just a week after making this decision, Welsh
singer Tom Jones released his smash-hit It’s
Not Unusual in anticipation of the Carlton
dance phenomenon of the ’90s.
Annoyed, the young singer changed his name
again to David Bowie, after the famous American
knife – supposedly because, like him, it
had two edges.
The problem was, throughout his entire career
Bowie pronounced his last name ‘BOW-ee’,
while Jim Bowie, the man the knife is named
after, pronounced it ‘BOO-ey’.
Something the singer wasn’t aware of until
he visited Scotland and heard everyone pronounce
it “wrong.”
Confused, Bowie came to the conclusion that
how his name was pronounced wasn’t as important
as people knowing it in the first place.
9.
He almost died because he ate nothing but
peppers for a month
The album Station to Station is considered
one of Bowie’s best.
Released in 1976 to rave reviews, Bowie himself
remained largely oblivious to the album’s
success later in life because he spent much
of the recording process blitzed out of his
mind on cocaine.
Bowie spent virtually the entire recording
process in a state of near-psychosis, surrounding
himself with ancient Egyptian artifacts and
spending much of his time ranting about witches
trying to steal his semen.
As a side effect of his cocaine-only diet,
Bowie largely lost his appetite and subsisted
on nothing but peppers washed down with cold
milk.
This diet nearly killed the singer, seeing
his weight drop to below 100 pounds at one
point.
The whole experience shook Bowie, who when
asked what he thought of Los Angeles after
recording the album there, replied simply,
“The f***ing place should be wiped off the
face of the earth.”
Truer words have never been spoken, Bowie.
Truer words.
8.
He was voted the best dressed Briton, ever
David Bowie changed his appearance and outfit
more times than a indecisive Dark Souls player.
He donned everything from suits sharp enough
to give a the Statue of David a paper cut
to custom made couture dresses, just because
he could.
In a 2013 poll, Britons recognized Bowie’s
commitment to constant reinvention by voting
him the best dressed Briton in history.
Bowie managed to walk away with nearly 50%
of the vote, beating out everyone from Queen
Alexandra to Beau Brummel, aka, the man who
invented the suit.
It speaks to Bowie’s universal appeal and
androgynous appearance that a majority of
polled Britons felt that he dressed better
than all British royalty as well as the guy
who invented the concept of wearing a suit.
7.
He’s an integral part of the Metal Gear
Solid universe
David Bowie possessed an uncanny ability to
alter his physical form like a lizard-man
or, if you prefer, man-lizard.
Bowie actually changed the way he looked so
much that throughout his career he’s inadvertently
styled himself to look like every character
in the video game series Metal Gear Solid.
As it turns out, this is no accident, and
Bowie is a key part of the Metal Gear universe,
with key characters and plot points being
named after his various alter-egos and songs.
As if this wasn’t overt enough, the character
Raiden was described as looking exactly like
David Bowie in the novelization of Metal Gear
Solid 2, while another character called The
Fury quotes Bowie as he flies into space and
explodes.
If this sounds odd, remember that this is
a video game series that suggests its main
character invented Mountain Dew, Doritos and
Axe body spray.
6.
He saved the first music video recorded in
space
A few years ago real-life spaceman and all-around
badass, Commander Chris Hadfield, recorded
a cover of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity”
in space, making it the first music video
ever recorded in, well, space.
As an aside, has anyone ever noticed that
if you type out and say the same word aloud
multiple times in a row it starts to sound
weird?
Bowie loved the cover and personally thanked
Hadfield for singing it, calling it the most
moving and beautiful rendition of the song
he’d ever heard.
The problem was, YouTube kept taking the video
down because although Bowie wrote and sang
the song, he didn’t own the rights to it.
This put YouTube in a unique legal quandary
as, although Bowie’s publisher was correct
in asserting that it owned the rights to the
song, said rights didn’t apply in outer
space.
And that’s an argument Bowie put forward
on Hadfield’s behalf, making him instrumental
in making sure the first cover recorded in
the upper stratosphere stayed freely available
for humanity to enjoy.
Speaking of covers…
5.
He was annoyed by a Nirvana cover
In 1993 Nirvana covered one of the Bowie’s
most famous hits, “The Man Who Sold the
World”, much to the surprise of the singer
who was shocked he was a big enough part of
the American musical landscape for Nirvana
to even know who he was.
After Kurt Cobain passed away, Bowie expressed
regret at never being able to pick Cobain’s
brain and find out why he chose to cover his
song, once saying that simply having the chance
to speak to the grunge legend would have been
“real cool.”
Although Bowie was ultimately flattered by
the cover, he did become somewhat annoyed
at its enduring legacy as a “Nirvana song.”
Bowie would later note that when he played
the song at concerts in the States, younger
fans would approach him to talk about how
neat it was that he’d covered a Nirvana
song.
Bowie’s reaction was to call them a “tosser”
and tell them to “f**k off.”
4.
Christopher Nolan begged him to be Nikola
Tesla
David Bowie has had such a commanding screen
presence that his cameos often caused the
movies he was appearing in to freeze for a
moment just to announce that, holy crap, it’s
David Bowie.
Initially hesitant to appear in movies, Bowie
needed to be coaxed into starring in The Prestige
by director Christopher Nolan.
According to the director, he never had anyone
else but Bowie in mind to play scientist Nikola
Tesla, which resulted in him being somewhat
upset when Bowie turned the part down.
Not willing to take no for an answer, Nolan
flew to New York to personally appeal to Bowie,
basically begging him to appear in the film.
Bowie was swayed by Nolan’s passion and
agreed to bless the film with his godly visage.
3.
He once played the Elephant Man on Broadway
David Bowie was an astonishingly handsome
man, what with his teasing androgynous appearance,
cheekbones capable of cutting glass, and soul-piercing
stare.
Which is why it may surprise you to learn
that the Thin White Duke once played a man
famous for being so horrendously, upsettlingly
ugly he literally earned a living standing
completely still and letting people stare
at his face: Joseph Merrick, better known
by his Wu-Tang name, the Elephant Man.
While little in the way of physical evidence
remains of Bowie’s brief tenure as a stage
actor, with there only really being promotional
photos and publicity stills of Bowie in costume,
and a few stray clips here and there, reviews
indicate Bowie’s performance was one that
cemented his reputation as not just a musician,
but a true Renaissance Man who was as comfortable
on stage reading lines in a diaper (oh yeah,
Bowie’s costume was just a big cotton diaper)
as he was playing a guitar.
Because apparently just being an internationally
recognized sex symbol/rockstar/musical super-genius
wasn’t enough for David Bowie.
2.
He once finished a set with a lollipop sticking
out of his eye
David Bowie’s distinctive, mismatched eyes
were a result of a childhood altercation with
a friend resulting in his left pupil being
permanently dilated.
Effectively blind in that eye, Bowie had problems
with his peripheral vision, which resulted
in him being hit in the eye socket by a lollipop
thrown by a fan while performing on stage
in Norway in 2004.
The lollipop, which became physically lodged
in Bowie’s bad pupil, needed to be forcefully
ripped from the singer’s eyeball by a stagehand.
An annoyed Bowie chastised the crowd before
regaining his composure and joking about how
lucky it was that the lollipop hit his bad
eye.
Bowie then told the crowd he’d punish them
by playing an extra long set, presumably featuring
the song “The Laughing Gnome” like eight
times.
1.
He didn’t do any of the contact juggling
in Labyrinth
One of Bowie’s most famous film roles is
that of Jareth the Goblin King in the film
Labyrinth.
A question Bowie was asked repeatedly following
the release of the film is how long it took
him to master contact juggling, a skill Jareth
possesses and shows off multiple times throughout
the film.
Bowie’s response was to laugh and explain
that the juggling was actually done by somebody
else; specifically, master juggler Michael
Moschen.
To achieve the effect that Bowie was able
to deftly manipulate a steel ball with his
long, slender man-fingers, Moschen hid behind
Bowie and put his arms through his Goblin-cape.
You know, kind of like what kids do when they’re
pretending to be Goro from Mortal Kombat.
A testament to Moschen’s skill is that he
was able to make an orb of condensed goblin-power
dance across his fingertips completely blind.
It also speaks to the mystique surrounding
Bowie that audiences saw him display a skill
nobody had ever seen him talk about or mention
before and still assumed it was him, because
it does seem like the kind of thing Bowie
would be amazing at.
