Beyond Fame, Money, Power, & Folly

Friday Flashback on a David Bowie song

FRIDAY FLASHBACK “Fame / For The Love of Money / Steppin’ Stone” live in Florida 2011

 “Fame” is a song-sermon on the epic follies of stardom, written by 2 men who knew the Frankensteinian parameters of fame: John Lennon and David Bowie. Here’s my acoustic cover of of it in a medley with fitting songs by The Monkees and The O’Jays. I am joined by my cousin, violinist Larry Ziegenfuss, who keeps rockin’ it in with his violin bow and his camera. The soul of this performance outshines the technical limits of a blurry and noisy video.

David Bowie had achieved stardom with his 1972 album THE RISE & FALL OF ZIGGY STARDUST & THE SPIDERS FROM MARS. He presented his aspirations to become famous in the song "Star", encapsulating the fantasies of  "every adolescent dreamer miming into a hairbrush in a suburban bedroom.” However, by the beginning of 1975, "fame" had new meanings for him. It meant not only his stardom, but also impending lawsuits resulting from the ending of Bowie's relationship with his manager Tony Defries. It also meant an expensive musical theatre project concocted by Defries, titled Fame, that was financed through MainMan, a company that was built around Bowie's fame; the show was an examination of Marilyn Monroe. It was a disastrous flop. The failure of Fame almost ruined MainMan and was traumatic on Bowie and Defries' relationship.

Bowie would later describe "Fame" as "nasty, angry", and fully admitted that it was written "with a degree of malice" aimed at the MainMan. This is supported by biographer Peter Doggett who wrote, "Every time in ‘Fame’ that Bowie snapped back with a cynical retort about its pitfalls, he had [Defries] and [Defries's] epic folly in mind," and noted the lyric "bully for you, chilly for me" as the striking example. In 1990, Bowie reflected, "I'd had very upsetting management problems and a lot of that was built into the song. I've left all that behind me, now... I think fame itself is not a rewarding thing. The most you can say is that it gets you a seat in restaurants.”

John Lennon’s involvement began in 1974. He and Bowie had jammed together, which led to a one-day session at Electric Lady Studios in January 1975. There, guitarist Carlos Alomar worked up a guitar riff for Bowie’s intended cover of “Footstompin’” by The Flairs. Bowie decided the riff was too good to give to a cover, then Lennon heard it and added his own vocal hooks, which became “Fame.” Bowie later said that Lennon was the "energy" and the "inspiration" for "Fame", and that's why he received a co-writing credit. Lennon stated in a 1980 interview: "We took some Stevie Wonder middle 8 and did it backwards, and that’s how we made a record out of it!”  

#DavidBowie #Fame #JohnLennon #OJays #Monkees #SteppinStone #BoyceHart #acoustic #concert #violin #Tavares #Florida #LarryZiegenfuss #JohnnyJBlair #SingeratLarge