David Bowie, New York, 1984, photograph by Greg Gorman via Sleek Art
We remember pop-legend David Bowie who died earlier this week with everything you need to know about his “Berlin years”.
Blue punch Duke live, 1976, photograph via davidbowie.com
Drugs
Bowie famously “killed off” his characters before swiftly moving on to the next. But in 1976 he was finding the cocaine-riddled Thin White Duke harder to shake. His move to Berlin was an attempt to seek relative anonymity and an environment in which he could rid himself of this alter ego and addiction. He rode his bicycle in a boiler suit to the studio each day and Berliners – as ice-cool then as they are now – never bothered him. “For some reason Berliners just didn’t care, well not about an English rock star anyway”, he later said.
Brian Eno, Robert Fripp and David Bowie recording Heroes, photograph via Pinterest (musicabellezayverdad.blogspot.de)
The Berlin Trilogy
Whilst in Berlin he wrote and recorded at Hansa Studios the majority of the three albums often considered his most critically acclaimed work: “Low”, “Heroes” and “Lodger”. The most experimental and least commercial of the trio, “Lodger”, was a postcard to his disapproving record label noting his destruction of “David Bowie, the popstar”; the cover showed a broken limbed Bowie, smashed up on the ground.
The Wall The title track from “Heroes” was written about a couple that Bowie would watch meet in secret under the shadow of the Berlin Wall, by which he walked past on his way to the studio. The city’s mayor, Michael Mueller, said: “Heroes” became “the hymn of our then-divided city and its longing for freedom.”
Iggy Pop and David Bowie, photograph via BLOUIN ARTINFO
Iggy
If the period in Berlin wasn’t prolific enough for Bowie, during this time, he also collaborated on his friend Iggy Pop’s albums “The Idiot” and “Lust for Life”. Often misquoted as housemates, they did however live in the same apartment building in Schöneberg.
David Bowie in 1977, photograph via davidbowie.com
Neukölln
“Neuköln” [sic] is a song on “Heroes”. Music critics have translated the Bowie/Brian Eno instrumental as a comment on the feelings of the “Gastarbeiter” (guest-workers), mostly Turkish immigrants who were brought over to rebuild the city, and housed in the unkempt district of Neukölln. This is still a predominantly Turkish area today, but now the Turks live alongside a largely English-speaking artsy crowd, who one might suspect are here lured by the creative freedom and legacy of Bowie’s “Berlin years”.
David Bowie, Low, image via musictech.net
Style
Bowie once said of his time in Berlin, that: “This is the closest you can get to David Bowie.” This was very much reflected in his style, with no glitter to be seen. Even the razor-cut tailoring synonymous with the Thin White Duke had softened, almost as if Bowie had found refuge in the relaxed style of Berlin. And this tendency hasn’t changed: anyone moving to the German capital will see their choice of colours inexorably veer towards only one tone – black. During this period, the clothes that Bowie wore – like the albums he produced – are the most stylistically enduring of all his looks. You need look no further than his heavy black leather trench coat, tightly belted over tailoring which has inspired menswear collections worldwide ever since. From his style, to music to lyricism, Bowie has left the world a unprecedented legacy of freedom and creativity that will influence many generations to come.
Text by Jessica Hannan
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