“I fell for Ziggy too. It was quite easy to become obsessed night and day with the character. I became Ziggy Stardust. David Bowie went totally out the window. Everybody was convincing me that I was a Messiah, especially on that first American tour. I got hopelessly lost in the fantasy” - David Bowie (1976)
What do we mean by cultural symbol? A symbol of innovation, defiance, sway and inimitability, which comes to represent a moment in history, a stamp on time and voice a for the masses. The Summer of Love was dead, and in the apocalyptic decade which followed, an icon fell from the atmosphere to breath some ‘hazy cosmic jive’ into a disillusioned time, significantly shaking up social norms in the most theatrical and glamorous manner. This is the life and death of Ziggy Stardust.
There is plenty more to Ziggy’s character than glamorous space-rocker. The over-indulgent, ambitious, compelling, arrogant Ziggy Stardust is as much a tragic figure as a utopian savior from space. He paved the way for live-fast, die-young mentality not uncommonly replicated by the rock’n’rollers of future decades. With his arrival on earth, Ziggy provided a soundtrack that carried prevalent universal truths such as death and repentance on the haunting “Five Years”, the desire to persevere and enjoy life on “Hang on to Yourself” or a recognition of his own corruptible self by the end of his time on earth in “Rock N’ Roll Suicide”. The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, is not just a brilliant semi-concept rock and roll album, it describes perfectly the pressures which surround us on earth, told through the eyes of a visitor who becomes, at the end of it all, human.
Escaping the saga for a moment, David Bowie’s alter-ego was the result of an immense cross-breeding of cultural influences, which thrust the weird, wonderful and alien into the mainstream. Norman Carl Odom aka ‘The Legendary Stardust Cowboy’ can be seen as core chromosome in Ziggy’s arrival, not just by name, but in the development of an early form of cosmic physco-billy. While his talent is questionable, ‘The Ledge’ as he was known, was a pioneer as an seriously early cosmic rocker, combining rock and roll with spooky spaced-out synth effects [see “I took a trip on a Gemini spacecraft” later covered by Bowie on Heathen in 2001]. Odom’s references to the cosmos and obsession with space provided a natural figure for Ziggy to model on, not to mention his position as an outcast, with an outright eccentric persona.
Legendary Stardust Cowboy – “I Took a Trip on a Gemini Spacecraft”
The other part of the Ziggy character was formed on the stylings of a man called Vince Taylor. A British version of Elvis Presley or Gene Vincent, Taylor became a cult figure by making it big in France as an energetic performer who, like a man possessed would never stop moving during performances. His erratic on-stage performances were topped only by his bizarre off-stage personality. Consumed by drugs, Taylor spiraled out of control, threw six-day parties, claimed he was the Son of God and became obsessed with UFOs. In ways similar to Ziggy, it was impossible to distinguish between the on- and off-stage Vince Taylor, who, like The Ledge, was both an outsider and pioneer.
Vince Taylor – “Twenty Flight Rock”
Bowie was still lingering in relative obscurity prior to 1972. His previous three studio albums had gained him increased recognition, with the brilliant Hunky Dory in 1971 establishing Bowie as a rock and roll revivalist. But a momentous appearance on Top Of The Pops in the summer of ‘72 was to give the world its first glimpse of the one called Ziggy, the cosmic visitor who was about to inject new impetus into the waning pop scene. Dressed in a colourful jumpsuit, red space boots, heavily doused with make-up beneath bright orange hair, the first Ziggy look was unlike anything ever seen in mainstream pop music, let alone public prime-time television. It was both startling and inspiring.
The look was based on the two further cultural influences in Stanley Kubrick’s droog look in A Clockwork Orange and Japanese kabuki theatre, and the designer Kansai Yamamoto, who went on to design his outfits right up until Ziggy’s death at the end of the Aladdin Sane tour of ’73.
Backed by his less extravagant yet suitably glitzy Spiders From Mars band these theatrical elements combined to give Ziggy an immediate impact even before he had strummed the perfect blue acoustic guitar he had with him that night. A tender yet powerful arrival on the music scene, Ziggy sang “Starman”, in which a cosmic figure eagerly awaits his arrival on earth. It paved the way for a truly vivacious album.
David Bowie – “Stardust”, on Top Of The Pops, 1972
The question of the album as either a progressive story of a cosmic rocker’s time on earth, an album which is more loosely based around Ziggy Stardust, or just as a straight up rock and roll triumph, has been well debated. I am heartened by the idea of a story being told by Bowie of Ziggy, or Ziggy of Bowie, or Ziggy of Ziggy. The story as I see it, begins at the end as Ziggy tells us of an “earth that was really dying”. “Five Years” is a sad lament, as the dispossessed gather in a square to hear the news of the apocalypse and to reflect upon where it all went wrong. It’s a bold choice, but sets the story for the fall of man as experienced by this cosmic prophet.
The album then charts Ziggy’s rise to a rock and roll star, announcing his arrival on the brilliant “Moonage Daydream”, the staple defiant and most infectious number “Hang On To Yourself”, and the chaotic and bawdy “Suffragette City”, which remains one of Bowie’s most entertaining and enduring songs.
Amidst all this celebration, there is an underlying ambiguity. It initially comes through in two of three places: the look (Ziggy’s androgynous style and mannerisms tore down boundaries in the 1970s) and the lyrics (ambiguous sexual references like being ‘a mama papa coming for you’ in ‘church of man love’ to the ‘well hung and snow white tan…with God given ass’, as well as the whole of “Lady Stardust”, which is about an androgynous performer). As taboo-breaking goes, the outlandish performances and sexual intrigue of Ziggy Stardust was crucial in the transformation of squeaky-clean mainstream pop music.
In doing so Ziggy soon became a cult-hero. Tapping into science fiction crazes, especially in the UK, was always going to work, but it was Ziggy’s wonderfully eccentric and heartwarming persona which struck the most powerful chord with the masses. As Bowie would later say “Ziggy was kind of an empty vessel you could put an awful lot of yourself into being your own version of Ziggy.”
The third and most pertinent ambiguity is that Ziggy’s rise to stardom also provides a delightful criticism on the myth of fame, and the falseness of rock icons. In becoming a plastic fantastic starlet, Ziggy exposed his own flaws in the quest for illustriousness, which was ultimately empty – like the “leper messiah”. Ironically, as the line became blurred between Ziggy and has creator, Bowie began implicating himself too. As Ziggy lived out the rock and roll lifestyle on stage, Bowie increasingly began adopting his mannerisms offstage. Bowie recalls: “I enjoyed the character so much and… along with the help of some chemical substances at the time, it became easier and easier for me to blur the lines between reality and the blessed creature that I created”.
A grueling tour schedule and album promotions adds an extra depth to Ziggy’s songs about the heavy burden of fame, as his Ron Davis cover goes: ‘It ain’t easy to get to heaven/when your going down’, while “Star” reveals Ziggy’s self-absorbed lifestyle, and the draw of fame taking precedence over other things going in the world. Despite celebrating Ziggy as a dynamic talented musician, the seminal song “Ziggy Stardust” also marks his fall: ‘Making love with his ego/Ziggy sucked up into his mind’.
On the beautiful closer “Rock and Roll Suicide”, Ziggy faces up to both the emptiness of the lifestyle he has absorbed and the inevitability of losing one’s youth. It’s a sad acoustic lament, yet it is infused with optimism. The song builds up to a chaotic finish with horns and strings, as Bowie calls out to the disenchanted masses ‘You’re not alone’ and ‘Give me your hands cos your wonderful’ in an astonishing eleventh hour attempt to break free of his own isolation. He simultaneously cemented his place as one of pop music’s most flawed heroes.
In this his lowest ebb, Ziggy chooses to end his life on Earth as the plastic rocker he never wanted to become. This is a threat which eventually became reality a year or so later. Following a surge of commercial success in the UK, Ziggy left to break America, producing the exceptional follow up Aladdin Sane. However, the increased pressure of touring a galaxy of American cities and towns took its toll and his infamous drug habit spiraled. Some cite sheer exhaustion, others Bowie’s low boredom threshold, but the conclusion of his 1973 world tour at the Hammersmith Odeon would prove to be Ziggy’s last: ‘Not only is it the last show of the tour…but it’s the last show we’ll ever do’. Ziggy’s time of earth came to an end where it began, on stage. Cosmic space rock would never be the same again.
Ziggy Stardust – “Rock and Roll Suicide”, 3rd July 1973, Hammersmith Odeon, London
As the years went on, it became apparent that Bowie was only shedding the skin of another character, and early fears of Bowie’s retirement from music were soon quashed with the release of Diamond Dogs in 1974. A new style of music, and a new onstage persona. But the casual death of Ziggy Stardust should not be seen as mere costume change. The Ziggy Stardust era was one of Bowie’s most successful, and his death is therefore difficult to understand. As a means to express himself Bowie used Ziggy to great effect, reviving pop music, breaking down taboo subjects of sexuality and androgyny, and providing an outsider hero figure for people to identify and worship. From the UK punk movement to the US grunge scene, Ziggy Stardust will live on forever.
All David Bowie quotations taken from http://www.5years.com/quotes.htm.
Illustration by Ella Plevin.
