Bowie: A Biography - JFK247

uilding and B, have me taken off the program. That
he could see me as a threat seemed ridiculous
when, to me, he was close to God and I was a spotty
nothing. It mattered nothing to me that I was selling
more records. He was the man. What he did,
although no big deal to me anymore, changed the
way I felt about him forever. He suddenly became
very, very human, no longer larger than life. As I’ve
grown older and seen my own career ebb and flow I
understand far more how he must have felt, even
though I’ve never had the same fears or felt the need
to try and harm someone else’s career.”
Lodger is strong enough an effort to stand
alongside any of the great New Wave releases of
1979, from the Cars’ Candy-O, to the Police’s
Regatta de Blanc, to Blondie’s Eat to the Beat, to
Public Image Limited’s Metal Box. While included in
the “Berlin trilogy” of Low and “Heroes,” Lodger was
not recorded at Hansa but rather at Mountain
Studios in Montreux, near Bowie’s home, shortly
after the close of his 1978 world tour. Work was
completed in New York City in the new year. The
same major players—Eno, Visconti and Alomar, and
the Dennis Davis and George Murray rhythm section
—appear, as does Belew. The popular opinion
among critics upon its release was that the record
was the least of the three, but in time, its reputation
has improved and world-beat tracks like “African
Night Flight” and “Yassassin” can now clearly be
heard as influences on Talking Heads’ much more
highly regarded 1980 album Remain in Light (also