Bowie: A Biography - JFK247

Chuck Berry’s “You Can’t Catch Me” (“Ha ha ha hee
hee hee / I’m the laughing gnome and you can’t
catch me”), and if there’s ever a museum for
gloriously foul puns (“Rolling Gnomes,” “Gnome
man’s land”) the master tape should reside on a
well-lit pedestal. “I am one of the gnomes on that
record and am responsible for some of the terrible
jokes on it as well,” the late Gus Dudgeon, who
produced Bowie and, more famously, Elton John,
admitted to a radio interviewer as if whispering to a
priest in a darkened confessional.
Bowie himself has developed a good-natured
affection for the song over the years. “I really think I
should have done more for gnomes,” he has said. “I
always feel a bit guilty that I just put my feet in the
water and never sort of dived into the deep end. I
really could have produced a new sensibility for the
garden gnome in Britain. Gnomes should have been
explored more deeply.”
In the nineties there was even talk of a jungle
remake of the track with that tedious genre’s biggest
star, the metal-toothed DJ Goldie, and acid house
music icon A Guy Called Gerald producing. It did not
happen. We remain grateful.
“The Laughing Gnome,” despite its legend, was
yet another failed single (although it was rereleased
in the early seventies once Bowie mania had fully
taken hold and enjoyed chart success). At worst, it
made Bowie seem dated and out of touch. The
would-be hit Bowie composition “Over the Wall We
Go” was another novelty effort about a cheerful