Bowie: A Biography - JFK247

of the worst lines I’ve ever written.”
Ralph Horton knew Tony Hatch, a proven hit
maker, through his association with the Moody
Blues, and it seemed like a good match, one that
would finally result in a much needed major chart
topper. Pye executives saw promise in Bowie as
well. In a conversation with Hatch, he explained that
Pye, “as a smaller label, had great success, although
the general policy was still to throw as much mud at
the wall as possible on the basis that some of it
would stick.” Several Bowie biographies claim that
shortly before the recording Hatch reportedly handed
David the tambourine that Petula Clark had played
on the Hatch-produced smash “Downtown” (although
Hatch refutes this, admitting, “I don’t recall Petula
having a lucky tambourine”).
The fate of “Can’t Help Thinking About Me” would
suggest that if it had existed, Clark had clearly
removed the magic from the instrument anyway.
Despite the inauspicious start, Bowie and Hatch
continued to make records for Pye with his backing
band the Buzz. Toiling in the studio, they hoped for
some kind of rare pop spark, à la Brian Wilson and
the Beatles, and drove the long-suffering engineers
crazy as sound levels were set and reset. This was,
after all, the cusp of the “studio as instrument” wave,
which would result in masterpieces like Pet Sounds,
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the
Zombies’ Odessey and Oracle, and S.F. Sorrow, by
Bowie’s old suburban art school cronies the Pretty
Things.