Tuesday July 12, 2022 “Suffragette City” David Bowie
Here’s another half century old tune, this one from David Bowie.
The band Mott The Hoople weren't selling well and were about to break up so to keep them going, Bowie a fan of the band, offered to produce their next album, and although they rejected “Suffragette City”, they did record Bowie's "All The Young Dudes," which became a big hit for them.
“Suffragette City” was originally released in April 1972 as the B-side (records, remember them) of the single "Starman" and subsequently appeared on Bowie’s fifth studio album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972) and was later reissued as a single in 1976.
The piano riff was heavily influenced by Little Richard, who Bowie was a big fan of and the ‘saxophone’ in the song is actually an ARP synthesizer. Some of the odd vocabulary (“Ah droogie…”) in “Suffragette City” is lifted from the Anthony Burgess novel Clockwork Orange, later a Stanley Kubrick directed movie.
David Bowie has six Grammys, four Brit Awards, has five albums on the Rolling Stones Greatest Albums of All Times, is ranked number twenty nine on 100 Greatest Britons is a member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame as well as the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and has album sales exceeding 140 million.
David Bowie left us in 2016 but left a broad catalog of amazing music with us.
Stay safe and well…and ”Oooooh wham, bam thank you ma’am.” (lifted from Charles Mingus but famously included in "Suffragette City")