Bowie: A Biography - JFK247

Five,” Bowie attempts to project the blank-eyed
purity of an actual five-year-old as he promises, “I will
chew and spit tobacco like my grandfather Jones.”
It’s such a sickly-sweet vignette, one is grateful for
the unintentional and somewhat cruel hilarity of
autobiographical lines like “I get headaches in the
morning,” which clearly reflect his mental turmoil at
the time.
“Rubber Band” also resurfaces, with Bowie
seemingly on leave from some brainwashed
barbershop quartet. “Let Me Sleep Beside You” is
considered again, a rocker in this context, but
Bowie’s air-guitar strumming handily ruins any edge
it might have brought. One can almost smell the
polyester sweat and smoke in the studio. During the
mime interlude Bowie performs a piece entitled “The
Mask” in full whiteface. “Ken was very much like [the
Lower Third and the Buzz’s manager] Ralph Horton,”
Hutchinson says. “His affection for David clouded the
whole thing. He didn’t understand what David was
doing with Feathers. Ken’s not rock ’n’ roll either. He
wanted David to be like Judy Garland. The thing that
Ken liked best in Love You Till Tuesday was ‘The
Mask,’ because there’s no music in it and David had
no trousers on. And that says it all.”
Before completion of the film project, Hermione
was given an opportunity to audition for a musical
enti tled Song of Norway, starring Florence
Henderson of Brady Bunch fame. Sensing perhaps
that the project she was committed to was a turkey,
she informed Bowie that she would not be able to