Bowie: A Biography - JFK247

Diamond Dogs. We used ‘Baby’s on Fire’ [by Eno]
where we were going to use ‘Moonage Daydream.’
The original script started out with seven Bowie
songs in it. Finally, we just made a campaign to get
‘All the Young Dudes.’ That would be the anthem that
would end the film. But we had to use [Roxy’s] ‘2HB’
instead.”
Bowie’s music has been used to great effect
before and since in ambitious films helmed by
auteurs like Uli Edel (the 1981 junkie drama
Christiane F.), Wes Anderson (the 2004 hipster
comedy The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, in
which vintage Bowie songs are sung in Portuguese
by Brazilian musician and cast member Seu Jorge)
and Gus Van Sant (2008’s Milk’s brilliant use of
Hunky Dory’s “Queen Bitch”). Its absence in the
Haynes film is, for some, a fatal blow. This is not,
after all, the Eno/Ferry story. Perhaps if the film had
been a bit more happy-go-lucky, it would have sold
itself a bit more easily to skeptics. Instead it seems
to try to will Eno, Cockney Rebel and T. Rex songs
into Bowie songs. “A lot of people also had
problems with the Bowie character singing a Roxy
Music song that was not even written at that time,”
says Moore, tweaking the purists. “But really, so
what?” Some critics praised the film, most did not,
and except for its sustained cult following on video
and the Web, Velvet Goldmine was a commercial
flop. Bowie, ultimately the only real arbiter who
mattered given the subject, offered his own review.
Essentially, he’d enjoyed the sex scenes between