Fame (David Bowie song)


"Fame" is a song recorded by English singer-songwriter David Bowie. It was released on his 1975 album Young Americans and was later issued as the album's second single by RCA Records in July 1975. Written by Bowie, Carlos Alomar and former Beatle John Lennon, it was recorded at Electric Lady Studios in New York City in January 1975. It is a funk rock song that represents Bowie's dissatisfaction with the troubles of fame and stardom. The song was a major commercial success in North America, becoming Bowie's first number 1 single on both the US Billboard Hot 100 and the Canadian Singles Chart. The song was one of the more successful singles of the year, ranking at number 7 on the Billboard Year-End Hot 100. However, it was less successful in Europe, reaching number 17 in the UK Singles Chart.
In 1990, Bowie remixed the song under the title "Fame '90" to coincide with his Sound+Vision Tour. "Fame" has since appeared on many compilation albums, and was remastered in 2016 as part of the Who Can I Be Now? box set.
The song is one of four of Bowie's songs to be included in The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.

Background

With the release of his 1972 album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, Bowie achieved stardom. On that album, Bowie presented his aspirations to become famous in "Star", which also encapsulated the fantasies of "every adolescent dreamer miming into a hairbrush in a suburban bedroom", on top of Bowie's own frustration with not having fulfilled his potential. By the beginning of 1975, "fame" meant a couple of different things to Bowie. It meant not only his stardom, but also impending lawsuits that were the result of the ending of Bowie's relationship with his manager Tony Defries. It also meant an expensive musical theatre project concocted by Defries, titled Fame, that was financed through MainMan, a company that was built around Bowie's fame; the show was an examination of Marilyn Monroe that closed after one night on Broadway and after already flopping off-Broadway. The failure of Fame almost ruined MainMan and was traumatic on Bowie and Defries' relationship.
Bowie would later describe "Fame" as "nasty, angry", and fully admitted that it was written "with a degree of malice" aimed at the MainMan. This is supported by biographer Peter Doggett, who writes: "every time in "Fame" that Bowie snapped back with a cynical retort about its pitfalls, he had and epic folly in mind," and noted the lyric "bully for you, chilly for me" as the striking example. In 1990, Bowie recalled the song as his "least favourite track on the album" and reflected: "I'd had very upsetting management problems and a lot of that was built into the song. I've left all that behind me, now... I think fame itself is not a rewarding thing. The most you can say is that it gets you a seat in restaurants."

Composition and recording

With the Young Americans sessions mostly concluded by late 1974, the material was delayed while Bowie extricated himself from Defries. Sources differ on how "Fame" came to be in the studio, but both Doggett and Nicholas Pegg write that it was the product of "happy" accidents. By late 1974, Bowie was staying in New York City, where he met John Lennon, who was in his period of estrangement from his wife Yoko Ono. The pair jammed together, leading to a one-day session at Electric Lady Studios in January 1975. There, Carlos Alomar had developed a guitar riff for Bowie's cover of "Footstompin'" by the Flairs, which Bowie thought was "a waste" to give to a cover. Lennon, who was in the studio with them, came up with the hook when he started to sing "aim" over the riff, which Bowie turned into "Fame" and thereafter, according to Marc Spitz, wrote the rest of the lyrics to the song with Lennon. However, according to Doggett, Lennon made the "briefest lyrical contributions" that was "enough" to give him co-writing credit. Bowie would later say that Lennon was the "energy" and the "inspiration" for "Fame", and that's why he received a co-writing credit. Lennon would later contradict this story in a 1980 interview where he said: "We took some Stevie Wonder middle eight and did it backwards, you know, and we made a record out of it!" After the group solidified the riff, they emerged with something that was in the hand of "black American music" at the start of 1975: a "cousin" of "Hollywood Swinging" by Kool & the Gang, "The Payback" by James Brown, and "Do It " by B. T. Express. Doggett writes that other potential influences were the 1972 song "Jungle Walk" by the Rascals and the 1974 songs "Pick Up the Pieces" by the Average White Band and "Brighter Day" by Keith Christmas, a friend of Bowie's. Overall, Doggett believes "Fame" resembled "Thank You " by Sly and the Family Stone which, like "Fame", is in the funk style with "viciously pointed" lyrics.
"Fame" is a funk rock song that represents Bowie's dissatisfaction with the troubles of fame and stardom, including "money-grabbing managers, mindless adulation, unwanted entourages and the hollow vacuity of the limousine lifestyle". Lennon's voice is heard interjecting the falsetto "Fame" throughout the song. Doggett found it "striking" that the falsetto expanded three octaves, from "Yoko Ono soprano" to "Johnny Cash basso profundo". Along with "Fame", Bowie worked with Lennon again when he decided to record a cover of Lennon's Beatles song "Across the Universe"; Lennon played rhythm guitar on the cover. According to Spitz, "Fame" and "Across the Universe" were both last-minute additions to Young Americans. Although Young Americans was mostly co-produced by Tony Visconti, he was not present at the sessions for "Fame"; instead, both songs were co-produced by engineer Harry Maslin. In the song, Bowie sings "What you need, you have to borrow" with, according to Spitz, the same "venom" that Jimi Hendrix sang, "Businessmen they drink my wine," on his cover of Bob Dylan's "All Along the Watchtower".

Release and reception

"Fame" was released on 7 March 1975 as the final track on Bowie's ninth studio album Young Americans. It was subsequently released by RCA Records as the second single to the album on 25 July 1975 with fellow album track "Right" as the B-side. "Fame" became Bowie's biggest hit to that point in the US. It was his first number one hit on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, as well as his first to break the top 10, but would only reach number 17 in the UK Singles Chart. Bowie would later claim that he had "absolutely no idea" that the song would do so well as a single, saying "I wouldn't know how to pick a single if it hit me in the face."
Dave Thompson of AllMusic calls the track "a hard-funking dance storm whose lyrics -- a hostile riposte on the personal cost of success -- utterly belie the upbeat tempo and feel of the song." Following Bowie's death in 2016, Rolling Stone listed it as one of Bowie's 30 essential songs. In 2018, the writers of NME, in their list of Bowie's 41 greatest songs, ranked "Fame" at number 21.
The song is one of four of Bowie's songs to be included in The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.

Track listing

;7" UK single
  1. "Fame" – 3:30
  2. "Right" – 4:13

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

Personnel

A remixed version of "Fame" was released by EMI in 1990 to coincide with the Sound+Vision Tour, the release of the Changesbowie compilation, and the Pretty Woman soundtrack. Bowie wanted to remix a successful American single for the tour and album release; of the two options, "Let's Dance" was simply too recent. Bowie liked the choice: "It covers a lot of ground, Fame; it stands up really well in time. It still sounds potent. It's quite a nasty, angry little song. I quite like that." The "Gass Mix" was subsequently included on the Pretty Woman soundtrack.

Track listing

Song written by David Bowie, Carlos Alomar, and John Lennon.
;US CD single
  1. "Fame '90" – 4:10
  2. "Fame '90" – 5:58
  3. "Fame '90" – 3:38
  4. "Fame '90" – 5:58
  5. "Fame '90" – 14:25
;West Germany maxi CD single
  1. "Fame '90" – 5:58
  2. "Fame '90" – 5:58
  3. "Fame '90" – 3:38
  4. "Fame '90" – 3:10
;"Exclusive Changes pack" 7" vinyl single
  1. "Fame '90" – 3:38
  2. "Fame '90" – 3:10
;Limited edition 7" vinyl picture disc
  1. "Fame '90" – 3:38
  2. "Fame '90" – 4:45
Film director Gus Van Sant directed the promotional video for this version, which featured clips from many of Bowie’s previous videos. In the music video, Bowie also performs a dance with Louise Lecavalier, one of the main dancers of the Québécois contemporary dance troupe La La La Human Steps. The US version of the video replaces some of Bowie's music videos for scenes from the movie Pretty Woman.
David Bowie's "Fame" was used as the soundtrack of an animated music video of the same title, directed by Richard Jefferies and Mark Kirkland while students at California Institute of the Arts. The film, released in 1975, went on to win the Student Academy Award for animation and aired on NBC's The Midnight Special.

Chart history