Bowie: A Biography - JFK247

confirmation that he’d made it. It was also an ideal
drug for Bowie’s highly sexualized new world. “Until
you’ve got a mouth full of cocaine, you don’t know
what kissing is. You never get tired! You’re on 4th
speed all the time, and the engine purrs like a kitten
with the stars in its whiskers,” Aleister Crowley
wrote. Every wham-bam assignation went off more
smoothly with a toot.
Bowie had already recorded two tracks for the
follow-up to Pin Ups in October 1973 at London’s
Olympic Studios: “1984,” that sinister Winston
Smith-meets-John Shaft wah-wah-pedal orgy, and
the B side “Dodo.” The following month, however, he
was no closer to completing a follow-up to Pin Ups.
With MainMan losing capital by the day, the pressure
was on. However, fueled by cocaine, titanic creative
ambition and the sense that from now on everything
he laid his long fingers on would be golden, Bowie
ignored it all and set about planning another
elaborate stage show, or perhaps a film or a
Broadway show. He also began work on writing and
producing an album for Ava Cherry. He produced a
version of his “The Man Who Sold the World” with
English pop sweetheart Lulu (“To Sir with Love”),
who was looking to move her career and image in a
more adult direction. This is another Bowie hallmark:
taking an artist at a career crossroads, usually one
who has seen better days professionally, and
reinventing them as a different pop entity, one
boasting the Bowie glow.
“He invited me to his concert. And back at the