Bowie PDF Book from JFK247

menacing, as is the narrator’s meeting with a man:
‘although I wasn’t there, he said I was his friend’.
Over two simple verses, multiple meanings emerge
– all of them disturbing, speaking of death or loss of
identity. Ronson’s guitar line for the chorus is
childishly simple, as are the lyrics. But the guitar
scales that punctuate the chorus march endlessly
upwards, like a never-ending staircase –
representing an eternity spent wandering. Like ‘All
the Madmen’, the song is disturbing, with an
emotional intensity that was new to Bowie’s work.
The complex, emotional environment that gave
birth to The Man Who Sold the World became
murkier still when on 27 April, halfway through the
sessions, David wrote to Ken, informing him he now
no longer considered him his manager and asking
him – in mis-phrased legal jargon – to confirm within
seven days that he would cease acting as such. A
week later, he and Tony Defries were at Pitt’s
Manchester Street office. Defries was low-key, but
did all of the talking; as would become his style, he
confronted the problem head-on but left troublesome
details until later – in this case, compensating Pitt for
the money he’d invested in David.
For Pitt, the meeting was devastating. In
hindsight, the warning signs were obvious, but
David’s defection came as a cruel, unforeseen blow.
All those around him at the time, including Wyper,
remember him being obviously traumatised – but
also touchingly anxious to ensure David’s career
wouldn’t suffer. Today Pitt details a host of
arrangements he had planned for Bowie – which