There’s not a detail out of place, even down to the ringing telephone that interrupts the ending, snapping you back to mundane reality.”īowie had a make-up artist he referred to as “my Picasso”, a Frenchman named Pierre La Roche who painted Bowie’s shock of blue eyeshadow in the Life on Mars? video and later created the lightning bolt on the cover of Aladdin Sane. Leah Kardos, musicologist and author of Blackstar Theory: The Last Works of David Bowie, says the song has always been “proof positive of Bowie’s sophisticated songwriting chops”, with a “central vocal performance that is tender, gymnastic, and camp. Photograph: James Briggsīowie’s vocals crown it all, his B flat top note only a semitone below the famous “vincero” climax from Nessun Dorma. Space odyssey … James reaches the final stage of his journey. Producer Ken Scott recognised it was destined for greatness too, calling it “the big one” and saving it for the climactic sessions for Hunky Dory, the album on which the song appeared in 1971. Having given it the once over, the BBC instrumentalists were so impressed, they performed it a second time to master it. Drummer Woody Woodmansey has said the notoriously hard-to-please BBC string players were awaiting instruction, so guitarist Mick Ronson, having written his first ever string arrangement and wildly nervous, rolled a cigarette and explained how it should be played. After the song’s recording session, Rick Wakeman – the pianist who embellished the chords Bowie had played him on a “battered 12-string” – told his friends he’d just played on “the best song he’d ever had the privilege to work on”. Bowie’s B flat top note is only a semitone below the famous climax from Nessun DormaĮven in our impromptu version, the lyrics tumbled us into Bowie’s subconscious – and the music carries you deeper still. She loved the simplicity of its opening notes, a piano chord that transported her to her “happy place”, and just outside “Clo-Clo’s” bathroom, we performed a shaky duet. After explaining my mission to the tour leader, her eyes lit up: Life on Mars? was her wedding song. François had died young after trying to fix a squiffy lightbulb while sitting in his bathtub. Taking the official tour, more drama came to light. Having flown to Ibiza, cycled 900 miles around the island and then onward through the Spanish and French countryside, I now stood – lactic acid pooling in my thighs – outside François’s old house in Dannemois, 30 miles south of Paris. ‘Suburban dullness’ … the Beckenham bandstand where James’s journey – and the song – all began. Bowie, pride battered but not burst, snatched the chord progression and rearranged it with an ascending rock twist. The publisher thought it was awful and the chanson instead passed to Paul Anka, who came back with My Way. When Comme d’Habitude landed in his lap, he turned it into a song called Even a Fool Learns to Love. Bowie was in London’s Denmark Street rewriting European songs for anyone who would take them. What he didn’t mention was that the song was born from a kind of musical menage a trois with Frank Sinatra and singer Claude François, who wrote a chanson in 1967 called Comme d’Habitude. “I started working it out on the piano and had the whole lyric and melody finished by late afternoon. ‘Sailors bap-bap-bap-bap-baaa-bap’ … Middle-class ecstasy.” He took a riff he couldn’t shake back to his flat in Haddon Hall, Beckenham. A really beautiful day in the park, sitting on the steps of the bandstand. Commenting on the song’s construction he later said: “This song was so easy. Embellished with vintage photos and illustrations.Then aged 24, Bowie was gaining confidence as a writer.Plus rib-tickling parodies, jokes, readings and sayings.More than 125 funny songs - lyrics, tunes, and suggested accompaniment chords.A choice collection of photos and vintage illustrations add the final touch for the enjoyment of this top-notch collection. More fun rib-ticklers include The Limerick Song (suitable for general audiences), Little Willie verses and the parody My Grandfather’s Feet Were Too Strong For His Shoes. The reading Why She Didn’t Become a Baptist leaves even church groups roaring in laughter. Included are Take My Bridgework Back To Mother, Send Me To Glory In a Glad Bag, The Housewife’s Lament and The Piddling Pup. Each song has complete lyrics, melody line and suggested accompaniment chords. A mammoth illustrated collection of more than 125 funny songs, mostly in the folk tradition, interlaced with a multitude of parodies, jokes, recitations and sayings collected by the author over a lifetime of performing.
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