Fact #100786

David Bowie : It was, unfortunately, a very good song that possibly I wrote a bit too early, because I hadn't anything else substantial at the time. What I was involved in to a lesser or greater extent at that point was what were known in England as the Arts Labs. The idea was to encourage people to locally congregate at this meeting house in Beckenham and become involved in all aspects of arts in society. To come and watch strange performances by long-haired, strange people. They started out with altruistic aims. We'd all contribute to the funding, but those things were always broke, owing money left, right and centre. You'd hire Bunuel films like Un Chien Andalou for people to see and not be able to pay for rental. Then you'd have poets who'd come down from Cumberland in their transit vans to read, and so on.


In the midst of all this, I'd written this little thing about Major Tom and gotten it recorded, and I was told I had a concert tour if I wanted it! I thought haughtily, "I'll go out and sing my songs!" not knowing what audiences were like in those days. Sure enough, it was the revival of the mod thing which had since turned into skinheads. They couldn't abide me. No! No way! The whole spitting, cigarette-flicking abuse thing by audiences started long before the punks of 1977 in my own frame of reference.

(Source : not known)