My Month of Bowie, day 29: Iggy Pop's 'Lust for Life' (1977)

What, him worry? Iggy Pop lusted for life in 1977.

The album: Lust for Life (RCA, 1977)

Smile for the birdie, Iggy!

My thoughts: I distinctly remember learning that singer Dean Martin and comedian Jerry Lewis had once been a very successful duo in the 1950s. This was very confusing to me as a kid. The tan, tuxedoed guy who sang "That's Amore" and the twitchy, adenoidal comedian from the annual Labor Day telethon? How would that possibly work? And yet... somehow... it's true. There they are on TCM, yukking it up in hit films like The Caddy (1953) and The Stooge (1951). They were rock stars before rock stars existed, and their 1956 breakup was as bitter and well-publicized as that of The Beatles. In the minds of an entire generation, these two very different men—crooner and clown—are eternally linked.

You've probably already guessed that I'm using Martin and Lewis as a metaphor to describe the equally unlikely pairing of David Bowie and Iggy Pop in the late 1970s, with David as Dean and Iggy as Jerry. Only this pairing did not end in a contentious divorce. In fact, Iggy has been quite gracious over the years in acknowledging that Bowie not only resurrected his career but saved his life when the two moved to Europe and started writing and recording together while they kicked their respective drug habits. This fertile period led to three albums for Bowie and two more for Pop, all considered classics to one extent or another.

Iggy's second solo LP Lust for Life came out just half a year after The Idiot but does not follow the template of that record, at least musically. Experimentation and change were the keynotes of that era, so it would not have interested Bowie or Pop to imitate an album they'd just done. While The Idiot has been called an honorary Bowie album, since David's control over it was so great, Lust for Life sounds like Iggy Pop forging the identity he would use for his decades-long solo career. And what is that identity? Put simply, Iggy Pop is the man who's been through it all so you don't have to. He's done enough drinking, drugging, and screwing for any ten people. Lust for Life is the sound of a man who's been in his share of fistfights and hasn't necessarily won all of them. 

This album contains two of Iggy Pop's most justly-famous songs, the thundering title track (written with Bowie) and the haunting "The Passenger," and it's instructive to hear these familiar tunes in their original context. It reenergizes them. "Lust for Life" has been used in so many TV shows, movies, and commercials that we've forgotten or ignored the song's harrowing, William S. Burroughs-inspired lyrics about the junkie life. Which reminds me: there's an entire episode of This American Life about Burroughs from 2015, narrated by Iggy Pop. If you're still reading this article, you'll want to hear it. Naturally, the title track from this very album is a key part of that episode.

Lust for Life also contains a couple of songs that Bowie later revisited in 1984: "Tonight" and "Neighborhood Threat." In both cases, I'd have recommended leaving well enough alone, especially with "Tonight." Even though David's solo rendition adds a guest vocal by the always-welcome Tina Turner, the song loses almost all of the punch and immediacy it had in 1977. After hearing this Iggy Pop album, I'm starting to understand what people meant when they said David's creativity was running low in the '80s. Why take songs you'd already nailed and remake them unless you have something really vital to add to them? 

I said earlier that Lust for Life departs from the template established by The Idiot. Which, musically speaking, is true. Lust ditches the Kraftwerk-inspired sound of the previous record in favor of scrappy, Nuggets-style garage rock. Lyrically, though, I think Iggy Pop was working through a lot of the same issues on this LP as he was on the earlier one. Namely, Iggy is a man who's been at the banquet of life too long and has seen the underside of the table where all the chewed-up gum has solidified. You hear that theme coming through on tracks like "Some Weird Sin" and "Success." Sex, drugs, and rock & roll ought to come with a warning label, telling you they're contraindicated for anyone who wants to live to see retirement age.

P.S. I noticed that brothers Hunt and Tony Sales, sons of comedian Soupy Sales, worked on this album as musicians and songwriters on the closing track, "Fall in Love with Me." The Sales brothers would later join Bowie in Tin Machine about a decade later. Is this where the Tin Machine saga begins? I may have to check out that band after all.

Next: Toy (2021)

My Month of Bowie, day 28: Iggy Pop's 'The Idiot' (1977)

David Bowie made some weird friends along the way. Iggy Pop was one of them.

The album: The Idiot (RCA, 1977)

Everybody do the Iggy!

My thoughts: Hooked on drugs and losing what was left of his brilliant mind, David Bowie decamped to Europe in the late 1970s. His life in Los Angeles had gotten too out-of-control even for an androgynous alien rock star. Luckily for us, he took a boisterous traveling companion with him: ex-Stooges frontman and garage rock icon Iggy Pop. Bowie made his famed Berlin trilogy during this very productive era (1977-1979), drawing musical influence from such experimental German bands as Kraftwerk and collaborating with the always-enigmatic Brian Eno. But even while crafting three of his boldest and best-regarded LPs, Bowie still had time to serve as a producer, songwriter, vocalist, and multi-instrumentalist on Iggy Pop's first two solo albums.

Simultaneously goofy and menacing, Iggy Pop is such a major character in rock history—I think of him as the Bugs Bunny of proto-punk—that it's difficult to imagine there was ever a time when his solo career was brand new. But that's how it was in 1977. The Stooges were on a 30-year break, and Iggy needed to do something with himself to bridge that gap. The result was his debut record, The Idiot. David Bowie's influence on this LP is so great that some critics and fans feel The Idiot belongs to Bowie more than it belongs to Iggy. So it definitely qualifies for this project.

To me, The Idiot sounds like David Bowie and Iggy Pop sequestered themselves in an underground bunker somewhere and tried to figure out what music was, based only on their vague memories of it, while they lived on K-rations. Most of the songs on this album lock into a repetitive, thudding groove and stay there for several minutes while Iggy sings the same note over and over. Imagine an ornery robot trudging through a river of mud. Occasionally, David or Iggy will recall something of life on the surface world. To my ears, for instance, "Sister Midnight," has a lot in common with Stevie Wonder's "Superstition" (1972). And the intro to "Baby" is reminiscent of "Happy Together" (1967) by The Turtles. Just listen to it and think: "Imagine me and you, I do..."

I don't really buy that this is more of a David Bowie album than an Iggy Pop album because the central unifying sound of The Idiot is Iggy's deep, groggy voice. He's very much front and center. At various times he reminded me of Jim Morrison, Eric Burdon, and somebody's dad singing in the shower. There are even times when he sounds a lot like Bowie. (Bowie does contribute some backing vocals.) I wonder if David and Iggy were trying to Single White Female (1992) each other back then.

Lyrically, The Idiot is largely about jaded people who spend their nights partying, clubbing, carousing, drinking, and drugging into the wee small hours. It's fun at first, but it soon becomes empty and ultimately miserable. Iggy Pop sounds like a man who signed a contract with Satan centuries ago and has been mired in an endless loop of debauchery ever since. Did you ever see "A Nice Place to Visit," a 1960 episode of The Twilight Zone with Larry Blyden and Sebastian Cabot? It's about a small-time hoodlum who dies and goes to hell, only he doesn't realize it's hell right away because it sure seems like a gangster's paradise when he arrives. The Idiot reminded me of that.

P.S. Before I go, I should point out that this album contains the original version of "China Girl," which David Bowie famously rerecorded for Let's Dance (1983). I'm so accustomed to the Bowie version that the original somehow seems like a cover. But Iggy Pop's low-fi rendition is worth hearing on its own. Iggy sounds like his vocals were recorded on a Dictaphone, and there's this strange clattering sound that I think comes from a toy piano. "China Girl" is also noticeably faster than most of the other tracks on this album. In fact, The Idiot ends with three (!) consecutive dirges ("Dum Dum Boys," "Tiny Girls," and "Mass Production"), two of which break the seven-minute mark.

Next: Lust for Life (1977)

My Month of Bowie, day 13: 'Lodger' (1979)

Bowie gets smashed on Lodger.

The album: Lodger (RCA, 1979)

A flattened David Bowie.

My thoughts: I didn't grow up listening to the music of David Bowie—except for a few intense months when I was about 14—but I did grow up listening to the music of Talking Heads. Their albums were dear friends to me when I was an adolescent. David Bowie's Lodger might as well be a Talking Heads album. It has that same sound: herky-jerky like New Wave but with more of a groove to it so it doesn't sound sterile or robotic. God, I wish I'd been smart enough to listen to this album when it could have done me some good. There are cuts on it that sound like they could have come directly from Fear of Music (1979) or Remain in Light (1980).

Obviously, the biggest connection between the two Davids (Bowie and Byrne) is Brian Eno. Now that I think of it, I've never actually listened to My Life in the Bush of Ghosts (1981) all the way through. I'm gonna put that one on the to-do list. No time for it this month. I think I'll enjoy it.

By all rights, Lodger should sound like an ending. It's the third part of Bowie's Berlin trilogy and his last album of the 1970s. And yet, it doesn't sound like the end of anything. When it came out, Bowie was only a year away from divorcing Angie, his wife of ten years. But Lodger doesn't sound like a breakup album either. Well, on the opening track ("Fantastic Voyage"), Bowie does sing, "I don't want to live with somebody's depression." That doesn't sound like a man in a happy marriage. 

The aforementioned Mr. Eno is a big part of Lodger, cowriting six of the ten songs. But unlike Low (1977) and "Heroes" (1977), Lodger doesn't have any lengthy, spooky instrumental passages. It's more rock-forward and down-to-business than the other two. In that vein, "Boys Keep Swinging" shows that Bowie never stopped trying to make the ultimate pop record. He's as obsessed with that goal as Paul McCartney, Brian Wilson, Phil Spector, or any of the half-mad Captain Ahabs of the music world, always chasing that white whale.

Somehow, I had this (wrong) idea in my head that Bowie's Berlin trilogy would be drab and difficult, with the songs averaging 50 BPM. I guess the word "Berlin" threw me off. Maybe that's why I'd been avoiding these albums for so long. But even though Bowie's lyrics on Lodger are labyrinthine as always, hinting at some kind of internal struggle we're never totally privy to, the music packs a wallop. He's not in a mellow mood on Lodger. The music here is punchy and aggressive, the sound of a man who has survived the craziest decade of his life and is readying himself for the fight to come.

Now he's only 32. And all he wants to do is boogaloo.

Next: Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) (1980)

My Month of Bowie, day 12: "Heroes" (1977)

If David Bowie is a religion, then Heroes is the hymnal. 

The album: "Heroes" (RCA, 1977)

Now you see him, now you don't.

My thoughts: There was an animated GIF I used to see rather frequently on the internet depicting David Bowie as he appeared on the cover of "Heroes," the second album in his famed Berlin trilogy. In the GIF, Bowie would wave his hand in front of his pale, unsmiling face, and his eyes, nose, and mouth would instantly disappear, leaving nothing but a blank expanse. Then he'd wave his hand again, and his famous face would be restored. And the whole process would loop over and over again because that's how GIFs work.

Before I actually listened to "Heroes" all the way through, I thought the GIF was just a typical internet nonsense joke. But now, I think it's a pretty good representation of the album itself. This LP was released less than a year after Low (1977), and Bowie was presumably drawing on the same musical influences this time around, namely German experimental rock and the ambient musical stylings of English musician Brian Eno. 

Based on that description, you'd think the Berlin trilogy would be unlistenable and impenetrable, maybe even the musical equivalent of a migraine headache. But "Heroes" isn't like that at all. Instead, the album feels invigorating and alive—contemporary and forward-thinking without being overly trendy. The title track, in particular, sounds like you've met up with Lou Reed when he's in a particularly chipper mood... or as chipper as he gets. This is a Lou Reed who would help you carry groceries to your fifth-floor walkup.

When I reviewed Low, I said that Side 2 of that album contained some long instrumental passages that sounded like they belonged in a science-fiction movie. This, I suppose, was the influence of Brian Eno showing through. Well, "Heroes" doubles down on that material. Triples down. Quadruples down. It feels like most of the second half is taken up with the eerie Eno-phonic instrumentals. There's something pleasingly tranquil about these tracks. It's the kind of thing you'd want to listen to while watering your plants or tending to a rock garden. Maybe, after the craziness of his life in America, Bowie wanted to recalibrate. This music helped him do that.

There are times when "Heroes" barely sounds like a David Bowie album, at least not the Bowie we've come to know over the course of the last 11 albums. But then, in the album's closing track ("The Secret Life of Arabia"), he sounds like himself again. That's why I said the animated GIF was such a good representation of this record. Bowie's rock star persona has become a disguise he can put on or take off with a wave of his hand.

Next: Lodger (1979)

My Month of Bowie, day 11: 'Low' (1977)

David Bowie began his "Berlin trilogy" with Low.

The album: Low (RCA, 1977)

Was Low a new high for Bowie?

My thoughts: By 1976, the year he made Station to Station, David Bowie was such a paranoid, drugged-out mess that he moved from Los Angeles to Berlin with Iggy Pop to get clean. How chaotic does your life have to be that Iggy Pop is a crucial part of your sobriety plan? 

Still in all, this sounds to me like the perfect idea for a prime time sitcom. Imagine persnickety Tony Randall as Bowie, a constantly-shirtless Jack Klugman as Iggy, Don Knotts as Brian Eno, Suzanne Somers as Angela Bowie, and Don Rickles as Drugs. (To clarify: Rickles would be the human embodiment of drugs, and he'd move next door to Bowie to tempt him every week, like the devil sitting on Bowie's shoulder.) It's The Bowie Bunch, Thursdays at 8:00 on ABC!

If such a sitcom were ever made, the instrumental "Speed of Life" would make an ideal theme song. That's the track Bowie uses at the start of Low, the first album in his famed Berlin trilogy that found him collaborating with experimental musician Brian Eno and taking inspiration from German bands like Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, Neu!, and other ones I've probably never heard of. This is such a storied era in Bowie's career that it merits a documentary all its own.

I'd certainly heard of the Berlin trilogy—rock critics and historians have been overanalyzing it for years—but I can't say I'd ever actually listened to any of these albums all the way through until this project. So I really had no idea what to expect from Low. I probably thought it would sound bleak and sterile, perhaps even mechanical, but I didn't find the album to be any of those things. In fact, this album contains "Sound and Vision," one of those perfectly-realized '70s pop gems that Bowie was so eerily good at making. It's like a hot toddy on a cold night.

And then, there's "Be My Wife," which contains these very simple, straightforward lyrics: "Please be mine/Share my life/Stay with me/Be my wife." That's a message you'd expect to hear on a 1950s doo wop record. Take, for example, "Life is But a Dream" (1955) by The Harptones. That song famously starts with these stark lines: "Will you take part in my life, my love?/That is my dream." After making my way through ten albums with abstract, ambiguous lyrics, it was refreshing to hear David Bowie speak so plainly for a change. Or maybe he's been speaking plainly this whole time and I just haven't been paying close enough attention.

Supposedly, some of the tracks on Low are pieces that Bowie was workshopping for the soundtrack of Nicholas Roeg's The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976). Ultimately, Bowie starred in that downbeat science-fiction film but did not record the soundtrack for it. (That task fell to John Phillips.) On Side 2 of Low, there are indeed some tracks with longish instrumental passages that sound like they belong in a pessimistic '70s sci-fi movie. But even these I found eerily pretty and not merely depressing. I was especially fond of Low's closing track, "Subterraneans," with its choral refrain: "Share bride falling star..." It reminded me somewhat of the Missa Luba (1965), the famous Congolese interpretation of the Latin mass. 

I wonder, once I hear the second and third entries in the "Berlin Trilogy," will they somehow coalesce into something even greater? You know, like one of those combiner robots from a Japanese cartoon? One way to find out. And I'm just realizing now that "low" is the antonym of "high." Boy, what a dope I am sometimes.

Next: "Heroes" (1977)