'Lust is a great creative force': David Bowie reveals what drove him in exclusive interview

Given all that, it seems unfeasible that there is anything new to learn about Mr David Jones from Brixton. Yet the BBC 6 Music podcast Music Uncovered, David Bowie: Changeling has unearthed a previously unheard interview the Starman gave to producer Des Shaw in 2001, in which he looks back at his progression from wannabe rock star to global superstar in the early 70s, often guffawing at the absurdity of it all with a cackle to rival Grayson Perry’s.

In the interview, the Starman reflected on how he reacted to the fame and success he enjoyed in the early 70s, telling Shaw: "I think that throughout the 60s and most of the 70s I was driven by lust, as much as anything. It's a great creative force. That in turn is replaced by anger, when you ask where the money is. And then you get depression, and then you go to Berlin and write really moody instrumental stuff. It’s the triptych of the 70s. Lust, anger, moody."

Bowie also reflected on the differing views on what he was doing – his fusing of music, fashion, performance and art – “I think people are split into two very separate attitudes. One was that I was just this charlatan and other that I was, sort of, this rock god. There was no halfway measure. And I was rather scared of both sides!”

There’s no doubting on which side the contributors to the podcast fall, including its presenter Kate Moss, who became friends with Bowie through his deep interest in fashion. She recalls how their friendship began in the sweetest manner, “David, whose nickname for me by the way was Smasher, started phoning me on my birthday. I didn’t need any other presents after that.”

They formed a close relationship, to the extent that when Bowie won a lifetime achievement award at the Brits in 2014, he asked his friend Kate to collect it for him. She agreed, on one condition, that she could wear something from his archive: “I wore the original Kansai Yamamoto bodysuit that David had worn for his [Ziggy Stardust] Rainbow Theatre gigs in 1972 - it fit me like a glove. It was a very surreal experience.”

But then the surreal is part of the appeal of the Bowie legend and that otherworldliness is summed up rather well by an entertainer many would consider a down-to-earth chap, Robbie Williams: “He was basically a celestial, angelic member of a fraternity that exists outside of this planet and this ‘normie’ realm and there are very few that are sent to teach us, love us, show us the way, but he was one of them.”

There are quotes in the podcast from so many stars – across music, film, art, fashion – who felt taught, loved and shown the way by Bowie that his legacy comes through loud and clear.

Actor Tilda Swinton, for one, sees it clearly: “I think that what Bowie contributed and contributes still - and presumably always will contribute to the culture - is a model of flexibility, curiosity. [He] was clearly a deeply experimental spirit, so dedicated to not repeating himself and very healthily not invested in minding when other people didn’t like what he was up to.”

That single focus on doing what he wanted proved influential worldwide. Fashionista Edward Enninful, the former editor-in-chief of British Vogue who grew up in Ghana, says, “I was always obsessed with music. I was always obsessed with imagery and I remember I would see images of David Bowie in magazines and I knew how he looked was something that was just mind-blowing for a kid from Africa.

“That fact that he was not scared of his sexuality, the fact that there were so many young people in small towns who would go out in their ‘Bowieness’ - dressed like him, probably getting beat up every night in night clubs - but he was bold and he was unafraid and there was something that always sort of attracted me to him.”

A pop star who made a similar splash with his look in the 1980s, Boy George saw that Bowie’s impact was more profound than perhaps widening what music fans were able to wear: “[He] was unique because he was so contradictory in every way. He wasn’t the archetypal homosexual – or bisexual, I don’t think he was even that — and we were part of a new breed of gay people who weren’t apologetic. We weren’t going to apologise for being gay.”

Lady Gaga, who treads a similar path to Bowie in the way she encompasses the worlds of music, art, fashion and theatrics, and who pays a huge debt to his Aladdin Sane persona, makes the point that what people found so moving and profound always came wrapped in pure entertainment: “I always felt that his glamour was something he was using to express a message to people that was very healing. You can use the theatre of your imagination to entertain people beyond their wildest dreams.”

Yet it’s left to a superstar peer of Bowie’s to sum up everything in the simplest of terms. Elton John, who amazingly said at the time that Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust gigs were “too camp” (though he did later recant and admit the influence Ziggy had on him), now states clearly, “His music speaks for itself - he’s a giant, a ground-breaking artist, songwriter, performer, actor - and his legacy will be there for ever.”

Music Uncovered, David Bowie: Changeling is available now on BBC Sounds and broadcasts on 6 Music at 12-2am on Monday 22 September.

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