THE STORIES BEHIND THE SONGS
Taken from an idea through to a finished song in time left over after David Bowie recorded a clandestine demo, it led to a “functional” guitarist working with Bowie for the next 10 years.
Having crafted his enduring legend in the 70s, David Bowie had never been anywhere near as commercially successful as he was in the early 80s. 1983’s Let’s Dance album was huge, its accompanying six-month Serious Moonlight tour enormous.
Its ’84 follow-up Tonight did similar business, but behind the scenes Bowie was facing something of a writer’s block. Aside from Tonight’s singles (Loving The Alien, Blue Jean) all of its constituent material were co-writes (largely with Iggy Pop) and covers. Bowie needed inspiration. So when in the spring of ’85 film director Julien ‘The Great Rock ’N’ Roll Swindle’ Temple approached him to write the theme song for his ambitious musical adaptation of Colin MacInnes’ classic 1959 proto-mod novel Absolute Beginners (and to play the part of Vendice Partners) he leapt at the chance.
Meanwhile, former Thomas Dolby sideman Kevin Armstrong’s career was in free fall. “In the shitter, to be honest,” admits the guitarist, with rather more cheeriness than one might expect. Groomed for solo stardom by EMI, Armstrong had a debut album already recorded (which he owned outright), video made, name remixers and band in place, but “it all came crashing down”.
While in a state of ‘Well, what do I do now?’ the phone rang. It was Hugh Stanley-Clarke, an A&R man at EMI, who simply stated: “Go to Abbey Road. Take a guitar. You’ll thank me later.”
“We weren’t told who we were there to play for,” Armstrong says, “We were just a bunch of mid-level jobbing musicians who were told: ‘Go to Abbey Road, Mr X will turn up. He’s not supposed to be in the country for tax reasons, so we’re not allowed to tell you who it is.’”
Anyway, you’re probably ahead of me now – Mr X was David Bowie.
“He didn’t need name players, just functional musicians to do some demos with.”
The first tr
