Hunky Dory (1971)

 

The Bowie Project #4 - Hunky Dory (1971)

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David Bowie’s fourth studio release is commonly referred to as the album where “Bowie starts to become Bowie”, while his previous efforts laid the foundations for all that would come after and explored themes which he would return to again and again, this is the record where he truly finds his distinctive style and sound. This release sees Bowie move away from the hard rock sound of his previous album The Man Who Sold the World and into a more pop rock piano-based style. The themes explored reflect many of the same things Bowie had been writing about previously, such as occultism and Nietzschean philosophy, but it also explore his newfound fascination with America and American culture. This was a resulted of touring the U.S. the previous year which inspired him to write songs dedicated to three American icons: Andy Warhol, Bob Dylan, and Lou Reed. At this point Bowie was soaking up his influences like a sponge and he wasn’t shy about admitting it (his enthusiasm for Lou Reed led him to producing his 1972 album Transformer, revitalising Reed’s career after he left his band the Velvet Underground). Bowie spoke to Rolling Stone magazine in 1999 about how America impacted the album as a whole:

The whole Hunky Dory album reflected my newfound enthusiasm for this new continent that had been opened up to me. That was the first time a real outside situation affected me so 100 percent that it changed my way of writing and the way I look at things.

To record the album Bowie teamed up again with guitarist Mick Ronson and drummer Woody Woodmansey and recruited Trevor Bolder on bass and Rick Wakeman on piano. Wakeman’s contribution to the album really can’t be overstated and Bowie actually asked him to join his touring band, but he declined in order to join the progressive rock band Yes. Wakeman later discussed hearing the demos for the album for the first time saying they were “the finest selection of songs I have ever heard in one sitting in my entire life”.

The album opens with what is now considered an absolute classic and one of Bowie’s most well-known songs: “Changes”. The lead single from the album, the song is often seen as a representation of Bowie’s frequent reinventions of his musical style and could be considered a manifesto for his entire career. But all those changes would come later and initially the song was written about generational divides but also his personal need for artistic reinvention after his various artistic dead ends throughout much of the 1960s and on his previous three studio albums. The song was released as a single and it was Bowie’s first song to chart in the U.S. where it peaked at number 66. There’s not much I add to the discourse around this song except to say that its an incredible track and the true beginning of one of the most interesting musical careers of all time. It was the last song Bowie performed on stage before his retirement from live performances in 2006.

Next up is “Oh! You Pretty Things” which like “The Width of a Circle” and “The Supermen” off his previous record reflect Bowie’s interested in German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, particularly his idea of the Übermensch which he refers to as the Homo Superior. The song also takes inspiration from the occultist Aliester Crowley as well as the sci-fi novels The Coming Race by Edward Bulwer-Lytton and Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke. Of all Bowie songs that attempt to deal with Nietzschean philosophy I think this one is probably the best, it doesn’t get overly bogged down in its own theory and can be enjoyed outside of its sci-fi doomsday dystopian concept, because musically it’s such a bop. 

“Eight Line Poem” is a more stripped back track featuring just piano, guitar, and vocals and feels a little bit like a musical interlude and one of the more forgettable songs on the album. But as a song told from the point of view of a cactus that is actually nine lines long its got a beautiful simplicity to it. The song was noted by beat writer William Burroughs in an encounter with Bowie as being reminiscent of T.S. Eliot and comparable to the the Waste Land, to which Bowie replied: “Never read him”.

“Life On Mars” has a strange connection with Frank Sinatra’s song “My Way”. In 1968, Bowie wrote the lyrics to a song called “Even a Fool Learns to Love” set to the music of the French song called  “Comme d'habitude” by Claude François and Jacques Revaux. Bowie’s version was never released but Paul Anka bought the rights to the music and rewrote the song that would later be made famous by Sinatra. Bowie then wrote “Life on Mars” as a kind of revenge track using the same chords and leaving “inspired by Frankie” on the liner notes of the album. While the track may have begun as a Sinatra parody it developed into one of the most critically acclaimed songs of all time being ranked number one in the Daily Telegraph’s 100 Greatest Songs of All Time and being rated by Pitchfork as the best song of the 1970s. It’s easy to see why, its beautiful arrangement of vocals, piano and strings and its surreal lyricism all come together to make the song his first true masterpiece. Bowie summed up the song as “a sensitive young girl’s reaction to the media” later adding that “she finds herself disappointed with reality… she’s being told that there’s a far greater life out somewhere, and she’s bitterly disappointed that she doesn’t have access to it”. The song’s message that the media distorts our perceptions of reality has only become more relevant as time has gone on and the lyrics references to so much media, history, and lasting popular culture allows the song to exist in a realm outside of space and time.

Then it’s “Kooks”, a song Bowie wrote for his newborn son Duncan Jones (sometimes called Zowie Bowie). The song was written on the day of his birth as a pastiche of early 70s Neil Young particularly “Til the Morning Comes” on After the Gold Rush. A fun upbeat song and while it’s probably one of the albums weaker tracks I’ve always had a soft spot for it. 

Side one closes with “Quicksand” which brings together all of Bowie’s key interests in 1971: the occult, Nazi Germany, Buddhism’s rebirth and renewal, mortality, and the Nietzschean concepts of the Übermensch and eternal return. But at its core it’s a song about Bowie himself dealing with his own fears on the limits of his creativity or his ability to fulfil his own potential. The track seems to point to Bowie’s awareness that he was at a point of great transformation for himself as an artist, that he was starting to push through into something new.

Side two opens with the only cover on the album “Fill Your Heart” which was originally recorded by outside musician Tiny Tim in 1968. But even though it’s a cover it sounds like a Bowie track, its upbeat jazzy feel and cheerful positive lyrics stands in stark opposition to the self-doubt of the previous song. It’s almost as if after allowing himself to fall into an existential nightmare in “Quicksand” he breaks free-yeah-yeah-yeah!

Next is the first of a trilogy of songs exploring American icons, it’s a tribute to pop artist “Andy Warhol”. The story goes that Bowie had an advanced copy of the song sent to Warhol and he did not like it, he felt like Bowie was making fun of his appearance and his skin disease which is was particularly sensitive about. The second tribute track is “Song for Bob Dylan” a reference to Dylan’s 1962 homage to Woody Guthrie “Song to Woody”. This song was written around the time when Dylan was keeping a low profile and attempting to shed his status as a spokesman of his generation. Bowie pleads for a return to the old protest music that he was known for and even takes a jab at Dylan’s critically panned 1970 album Self Portrait saying, “we lost your train of thought, your paintings are all your own”. While Dylan and Bowie had crossed paths with each other a few times throughout the years their relations were never particularly strong with Bowie being later quoted in 1976 as saying “I’m not a great Dylan fan. I think he’s a prick, so I’m not that interested”. But the same cannot be said for the last tribute track “Queen Bitch” which was written as a tribute to future Bowie collaborator Lou Reed. The main riff for the song is lifted from Eddie Cochran’s “Three Steps to Heaven” and is the album’s most obvious forebearer to the glam rock sound that would be more fully explored in Bowie’s next album Ziggy Stardust. The song deals classic Lou Reed themes like drug use and homosexuality and with a swinging guitar proto-punk feel is a swift departure from the piano driven style of the rest of the album.

The album closes with “The Bewlay Brothers”, a song with such strange and opaque lyrics it’s almost impossible to know what exactly it's about. But with such dense imagery you feel like it must mean something if only you could decode it. The brothers in the song are never identified but if I had to guess I’d say it about himself and his half-brother Terry Burns, whose struggles with mental health and schizophrenia looms over much of Bowie’s work during this time. Producer Ken Scott claims that Bowie told him that it doesn’t mean anything and that he wrote it specifically for the American market to read into "because Americans love to read into things". No matter what, it ends the album in a haunting ethereal place with the realisation that you’ve just experienced something special. This is Bowie entering one of the most significant portions of his career and on the precipice of superstardom. 

Hunky Dory really is an incredible album, and I would say for someone who wants to get into Bowie but feels like his discography is too vast or daunting this is probably the best starting point, the music is deep and introspective if that’s what you’re looking for, but also upbeat and accessible if you don’t want to read into it too much. I think it is accurate to say this is the album where Bowie starts to become Bowie, and it’s just the beginning. 

Hunky Dory (1971) ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ (8/10)

Bonus Track: “Bombers”

This song was originally intended for the album but was replaced last minute with “Fill Your Heart” and was released as a promo single for the record and features quite a manic vocal deliver from Bowie. The song is a wartime satire in the same vein as Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 and the contrast of the depressing lyrics mixed with the upbeat joyous musicality makes the song feel lightly funny, a hidden little gem that’s a nice surprise for those Hunky Dory fans out there who haven’t heard it.

Click here to listen to an audio version of this review on Spotify