>> David Bowie: If it's wearing a pink hat and a red nose,

and it plays a guitar upside down, I will go and look at it.

You know I love to see people being dangerous.

>> [Music]

>> David Bowie: There was a real feeling of inadequacy in that era.

I never really felt like a rock singer or a rock star or whatever.

I always felt a little bit out of my element which is a ridiculously high falutin way of

looking at it. Now, from my standpoint, when I look back,

I realize that from '72 through to about '76, I was the ultimate rock star.

I couldn't have been more rock star.

>> Joe Smith: You had a zillion records and...

>> David Bowie: But the lifestyle and everything.

Anything that was going out there that had anything to do

with being a rock and roll singer, then I was hey let's go for this,

let's see what it is like.

>> [Music: David Bowie "Ziggy Stardust"]

>> Joe Smith: I read a quote, somebody called you a surreal cartoon character brought to life

>> David Bowie: It was, sort of. Ziggy was.

I mean he was half out of sci-fi rock and half out of the Japanese theater.

The clothes were, at that time, simply outrageous. And simply...

Nobody had seen anything like them before.

>> Joe Smith: Was there a point where people did not take your music seriously because you were...

>> David Bowie: I think I moved out of Ziggy fast enough

so as not to be caught by that one. Because most rock characters

that one can create only have a short lifespan. They are one shots, they are cartoony.

And the Ziggy thing was worth about one or two albums

before I couldn't really write anything else around him

or the world that I wanted to sort of put together for him.

>> [Music: David Bowie "Ziggy Stardust"]

David Bowie: I am a moderately good singer.

I'm not a great singer. But I can interpret the song,

which I don't think is quite the same thing as singing it.

So I was never unaware of my strength as an interpretive performer

but writing a song, for me... it never rang true.

I had no problem writing something for Iggy Pop,

or working with Lou Reed, or writing for Mott the Hoople.

I can get into their mood and what they want to do,

but I find it extremely hard to write for me

So I found it quite easy to write for the artists I would create

because I did find it much easier having created a Ziggy

to then write for him. Even though it was me doing it.

I was able to sort of distance myself from the whole...

yeah, well it can become very complicated.

Joe Smith: There is a psychological name for that.

David Bowie: Yes. It is. Fucking with the fabric of time there.

It did bring a whole sackful of its own inherent problems with it.

>> [Music: David Bowie "Moonage Daydream"]

>> Joe Smith: Do you have an affection for some of these characters

that you have created as you look back?

>> David Bowie: I think the only time I get sort of nostalgic

about any of that stuff at all is if I see

the old videos or I see a bit of the Ziggy Stardust concerts or whatever.

No, other than that I do not think I am cold about them

but I think it's work done.

>> Joe Smith: I think that is an actor's attitude, too.

>> David Bowie: I think you have to. Otherwise you start...

You get into a danger of getting into the rut

and maybe try to perpetuate something that has gone before.

A lot of people that I know are bugged with the idea

that they have got to have an audience, or they have got to be liked.

I think the more that you fall into that trap it makes your own life harder to come to terms with

because an audience appreciation is only going

to be periodic at the best of times. You will fall in and out of favor continually.

I do not think it should be something one should be looking for.

You should turn around at the end of the day and say I really like that piece of work,

or that piece of work sucked. Not, was that popular or wasn't it popular?

>> [Music: David Bowie "Lady Stardust"]

>> Joe Smith: Is it hard being David Bowie?

>> David Bowie: Not really, not now, no.

I do not have the outsider problem. For me, the world that I inhabit in reality

is probably very different world than the one people expect that I would be.

It is quite sedate. It's far removed from a lot of what they

would feel to be the limousine trappings of a rock existence, or whatever

>> [Music]

>> David Bowie: I went to one of the first art-oriented high schools in England.

I had a very excellent teacher, Peter Frampton's father,

who really kind of is quite an inspiration.

I went into the visual side of an advertising agency

and I was doing pasteup jobs and small designs

for raincoats and things like that. Awful, absolutely awful.

>> Joe Smith: Maybe you should have kept it....

>> David Bowie: Well, if all this goes down the tubes.

>> Joe Smith: You can always ...

>> David Bowie: Get on Madison Avenue with the best of them.

I think those days are over.

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