Teenage Wildlife

🔞 ALL INFORMATION CLICK HERE 👈🏻👈🏻👈🏻

Teenage Wildlife
[Chorus] I'm not some piece of teenage wildlife I'm not a piece of teenage wildlife [Verse 5] And no one will have seen and no one will confess The fingerprints will prove that you couldn't pass the test There'll be others on the line filing past Who'll whisper low I miss you he really had to go Well, each to his own, he was another piece of teenage wildlife Oh-oh-oh-oh, oh Another piece of teenage wildlife, oh-oh-oh-oh-oh, oh-oh Another piece of teenage wild... life [Outro] Wild... Wild... life
What have the artists said about the song?
Genius is the ultimate source of music knowledge, created by scholars like you who share facts and insight about the songs and artists they love.
To learn more, check out our transcription guide or visit our transcribers forum
Much like “Ashes to Ashes”, “Teenage Wildlife” reflects on Bowie’s place as a ‘70s icon. Gary Numan believed it was a diss aimed in his direction. Regardless of whether that’s true, it’s a passionate attack on impetuous youth. It can quite legitimately be read as a criticism of anyone young and successful, including Bowie himself. Music journalist Peter Doggett also suggested it may be aimed at Bowie’s former manager, Tony Defries – the line about “chilly receptions” is somewhat reminiscent of a similar line on “Fame” .
The song’s structure and chord progression mimics “Heroes” . It even features Robert Fripp of King Crimson on dual lead guitar alongside Chuck Hammer; Fripp previously played on “Heroes”. The dual leads and echoey drums give the song a larger-than-life sound reminiscent of Bruce Springsteen and Phil Spector . Although heavier than the glam-rock Bowie mastered in the early 70s, it is significantly more commercial than the experimental albums he had been releasing since Station To Station .
In a 2008 interview with the Daily Mail , Bowie described the composition of “Teenage Wildlife”:
So it’s late morning and I’m thinking: ‘New song and a fresh approach. I know, I’m going to do a Ronnie Spector . Oh yes I am. Ersatz, just for one day .’
And I did and here it is. Bless. I’m still enamoured of this song and would give you two Modern Loves for it any time…
Ironically, the lyric is something about taking a short view of life, not looking too far ahead and not predicting the oncoming hard knocks. The lyric might have been a note to a younger brother or my own adolescent self.

Your browser isn’t supported anymore. Update it to get the best YouTube experience and our latest features. Learn more

Teenage Wildlife: inside the song about Bowie's midlife crisis
Teenage Wildlife … ‘A play on adolescent abandon and teenagers as beasts.’ Photograph: Marty Lederhandler/AP
David Bowie: Teenage Wildlife – stream Spotify
Bowie biopic Stardust 'won't have any of dad's music' says son
Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning
© 2022 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. (modern)
In an extract from Chris O’Leary’s new book Ashes to Ashes, we witness David Bowie at a turning point in his career
Around 1976, London clubs began having “Bowie nights”, where DJs played Bowie records and clubgoers came dressed as an edition of him. For some, it was the pupal stage before they became punks. Others kept at it. By 1978, the big Bowie night was at Billy’s in Soho, where Rusty Egan was the DJ and Steve Strange worked the door. By the turn of the 80s, the scene had shifted to the Blitz club in Covent Garden, where Bowie nights became competitive pose-offs. Doing a variation on Bowie was work . In summer 1980, Jon Savage saw a group whose lead singer, “banging around in a Lurex mini-dress, was drawing entirely from a vocabulary invented by Bowie. And people stood and took it.” Egan and Strange formed Visage, later described by Simon Reynolds as “a confederacy of punk failures looking for a second shot at stardom” (so, very Bowie).
Bowie recognised his heirs, visiting the Blitz (he was sneaked in and ensconced in an upper room, like slumming royalty) and using Strange and other Blitz kids as mourners in his video for Ashes to Ashes. Each party had few illusions about the other. Strange regarded Bowie as a skilled operator, someone “allowed to get his ideas across quicker than up-and-coming bands. He’s always in the right place at the right time, checking out ideas. When he was in London he was always at the Blitz or at Hell.” And Bowie bottled his thoughts into Teenage Wildlife, his early midlife crisis song.
Backing tracks: circa 15 February-early March 1980, Power Station.
Vocals, overdubs: circa mid-May-early June 1980, Good Earth.
David Bowie: lead and backing vocal Robert Fripp: lead guitar Chuck Hammer: Roland GR-500 guitar synthesizer Roy Bittan: piano Carlos Alomar: rhythm guitar George Murray: bass Dennis Davis: drums Chris Porter, Lynn Maitland, Tony Visconti: backing vocals Produced: Bowie, Visconti Engineered: Larry Alexander, Jeff Hendrickson
There was a tart individualism in Britain in the late 70s, a taste of Thatcher’s reign to come, and Bowie nights were part of it. Robert Elms recalled being a Billy’s kid, walking through Soho streets piled with trash during the winter of discontent in 1978–1979. “Little peacock clusters, our plumage an affront to a still judgmental town,” he wrote. “Billy’s was like a do-it-yourself teenage version of a Neue Sachlichkeit painting, Cabaret on a student grant.” Strange said “the Blitz was an escape route. When the kids were dressing up at night they were living the fantasies. The kids wanted somewhere to go to look good. They do go out to be noticed.” In his autobiography, his memories were grander: “350 of the most creative, individualistic people in London would cram into the club.” The Billy’s and Blitz kids lived in performance, competing for status. As Elms wrote, “I had no idea what I was supposed to look like, but we all knew you had to look and make people look.”
Bowie, who constantly altered his appearance, who had no ties to anyone – no longer a wife, no longer a country – fit this mood better than any other rock star of the time. Being Bowie had been a way of life for British teenagers since his Top of the Pops appearance in 1972. But “his example of self-creation was serious and playful”, Simon Frith wrote in 1981. “His tastes, the selves he created, were impeccably suburban … Bowie was youth culture not as collective hedonism but as an individual grace that showed up everyone else as clods.”
Now the game was more serious – there were as many press photographers at the club door as actual Blitz kids, and the scene was full of fashion reporters and label executives “calculating the commercial possibilities of a national Blitz culture”. Touring in 1978, sampling scenes in London and New York, Bowie could see it on the horizon. He was becoming an industry (the first ever Bowie convention was held in Chicago while he cut Scary Monsters), being disassembled and used for parts. The Cuddly Toys took Ziggy Stardust, as did Bauhaus , who also raided The Man Who Sold the World. Duran Duran feasted on Young Americans, while Gary Numan built an altar to Low. Numan particularly irritated Bowie, to the point where Numan alleged Bowie had him kicked off a TV show on which they were both slated to appear. Numan argued that “image is to be copied. That’s the essential reason I created mine”, that he “never claimed to be original”, and that his success was owed to him filling a role for younger fans that Bowie had abandoned.
Bowie’s public thoughts on Teenage Wildlife were that “ironically, the lyric is something about taking a short view of life, not looking too far ahead and not predicting the oncoming hard knocks,” he wrote in 2008, where nearly 30 years before he’d said of the song “I guess it would be addressed to a mythical teenage brother if I had one, or maybe my latter-day adolescent self, trying to correct those things one thinks one’s done wrong.” The lyric’s starting point was a word-pile of resentment and paranoia from which he quarried ideas for Ashes to Ashes, Teenage Wildlife, and Because You’re Young. On this page of densely written text (part of the David Bowie Is exhibit), Bowie wrote, “let’s write about society and events of international import … who’s going to lead the working clash? It ain’t me buddy.” Over the page Bowie keeps circling back to the idea of an impending crisis (“won’t stop with Iran”). “There’s going to be war … there’s going to be chaos … you’re not gonna turn away. Pricks will write songs about it and tell you ‘it’s the truth’.” A few lines down, he becomes the prick: “it’s not strange it happens every day … It’s the truth.” The working title of Teenage Wildlife was It Happens Every Day.
The kids shouldn’t look to him for answers. Teenage Wildlife is another take on John Lennon’s God , a bloody denial of past selves. “Don’t ask me,” Bowie sings, after breaking the fourth wall and referring to himself as “David”. I feel like a group of one . The title is a play on adolescent abandon and teenagers as beasts. Pop and fashion are hard commerce, glam reborn as malicious ambition. (“The Conservative radicals were sounding really sharp,” Peter York wrote in 1980, where ABC’s Martin Fry later said that Britain in the early 80s “wanted a strong figure. They wanted individuals. They wanted heroes.”) A kid with squeaky-clean eyes becomes an ugly teenage millionaire. Pop stars are a succession of Lady Jane Greys, queens crowned and beheaded in a week. As Pete Townshend would say in 1989, “all pop music is a service industry”.
The longest track on Scary Monsters, Teenage Wildlife is a series of hard demands on the listener, even with its Ronettes vocal hooks and the comforting piano of Roy Bittan, recruited from Bruce Springsteen’s The River sessions in another Power Station studio ([Tony] Visconti said it took him years to “warm up to this track”). As if leaving space for last-minute agitations, the song has no refrain: its verses end only when punctuated by the title phrase and a Robert Fripp guitar break. Yet it was meticulously constructed. Chuck Hammer, who provided synthesised guitar textures, recalled that the song “had a complex arrangement with a number of different sections, each requiring a different structure”, and that Visconti patiently led him through the song’s chord chart.
There’s an ecstatic isolationism in Bowie’s vocal – a performance that none of his imitators could have matched, let alone conceived. It’s peacocking: he wrings out each phrase, swooping upward, haranguing syllables, unravelling as he sings, making flapping banners of words (“teenyage mill-yuuuun-aaaaaiiire”) summoning new personalities on a dime (he sounds like Richard Butler of the Psychedelic Furs on the first bridge), placing stresses on words as if to break them, forcing and suppressing rhymes, closing out by singing “wiiild-liiife” at the frayed high end of his range. A vocal chorus runs beside him, sometimes in support, sometimes to translate, sometimes left in their own world to hum.
He wanted the guitars to be “a splintery little duel” between Fripp and Carlos Alomar, while Hammer’s guitar synthesiser (used to greater effect in Ashes to Ashes) adds an eerie choral tone. In his most glorious appearance on Scary Monsters, Fripp rewrites his work on Heroes — his yearning leads are the answer Bowie’s kabuki of a vocal won’t provide. If Teenage Wildlife was Bowie’s bequest to his successors, it’s a poisoned transfer of power. The future can’t live up to him: the ambitious kid can’t pass the test. Bowie considered it a central work of the period, writing that he was “still enamoured of this song and would give you two Modern Loves for it any time” in one of his last public statements. A phenomenal owning of the future, it’s still electrifying to hear today.
Ashes to Ashes is published by Repeater (£20). To order a copy go to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over £15, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of £1.99
Author Chris O’Leary will be in conversation with Bob Stanley at Rough Trade East, London , on 14 March, and with Owen Hatherley at the International Anthony Burgess Foundation, Manchester, on 16 March.

This article contains affiliate links, which means we may earn a small commission if a reader clicks through and
makes a purchase. All our journalism is independent and is in no way influenced by any advertiser or commercial initiative.
By clicking on an affiliate link, you accept that third-party cookies will be set.
More information .


Album: Scary Monsters and Super Creeps ( 1980 )
David Bowie (from the Mail on Sunday June 29, 2008): "So it's late morning and I'm thinking: 'New song and a fresh approach. I know, I'm going to do a Ronnie Spector. Oh yes I am. Ersatz, just for one day.' And I did and here it is. Bless. I'm still enamored of this song and would give you two ' Modern Love s' for it any time. It's also one that I find fulfilling to sing onstage. It has some nice interesting sections to it that can trip you up, always a good kind of obstacle to contend with live. Ironically, the lyric is something about taking a short view of life, not looking too far ahead and not predicting the oncoming hard knocks. The lyric might have been a note to a younger brother or my own adolescent self."
In the same Mail on Sunday interview Bowie referred to guitarists "the great Robert Fripp and my long-time friend Carlos Alomar" forming "a splintery little duel." While Fripp is best known for his membership of the progressive rock band King Crimson, Alomar is an American session guitarist who has played on more Bowie albums than any other musician. Among the Bowie songs he has played on are " Young Americans ," " Fame " and " Boys Keep Swinging ."
David Bowie hated Gary Numan , a man who grew up idolizing the This White Duke. He slagged him off in the press and once had the synth-pop artist thrown off the set of Kenny Everett's TV Christmas Special . Bowie even took a potshot at Numan during this song. Same old thing in brand, new drag Comes sweeping into view, whoa, hoe, hoe, hoe, hoe, hoe As ugly as a teenage millionaire Pretending it's a whizz-kid world "It just seems really childish," Numan told Q magazine. "When he did that, I couldn't have given a f--k about him."
Your name as you would like it displayed

Information

About Us
Terms of Service
Our Privacy Policy
Google Privacy Policy
Songfacts API
Music History Calendar
Song Licensing
Affiliate Disclosure
Contact Us



Follow Us

Facebook
Twitter
YouTube



Contribution

Suggest a Songfact or Artistfact
Message Boards
Songfacts Writers


Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista, Christy Turlington and Tatjana Patitz lip-synched George Michael's lyrics in his "Freedom '90" video.
"Pretty In Pink" by Psychedelic Furs was released in 1981. Five years later, it inspired a movie of the same name starring Molly Ringwald, Andrew McCarthy and Jon Cryer. The song was remixed for the re-release to have more Pop appeal.
Demi Lovato recorded a Spanish version of her song "Skyscraper," but she doesn't speak Spanish. She performed it on a Latin music awards show with help from a teleprompter.
The most famous pop song featuring a bassoon: "The Tears of a Clown" by Smokey Robinson & the Miracles.
Ronnie Van Zant wrote the Lynyrd Skynyrd classic "Gimme Three Steps" after making the mistake of dancing with a girl whose boyfriend was in the bar and probably had a gun. He asked for a 3-step head start.
Holland-Dozier-Holland originally wrote "Where Did Our Love Go" with The Marvelettes in mind, but they turned it down. Marvelettes lead singer Gladys Horton sang in a lower key than Diana Ross, so when The Supremes came to record the tune, Ross was forced to sing in a lower, breathier style than she was used to.
Established as a redoubtable singer-songwriter, the Men At Work frontman explains how religion, sobriety and Jack Nicholson play into his songwriting.
One of the most successful songwriters in the business, Desmond co-wrote "Livin' La Vida Loca," "Dude (Looks Like A Lady)" and "Livin' On A Prayer."
In this quiz, spot the artist who put Romeo into a song lyric.
Many actors have attempted music, but only a few have managed a hit. Do you know which of these thespians charted?
A talk with Martin Popoff about his latest book on Rush and how he assessed the thousands of albums he reviewed.
In her days with The Runaways, Joan Jett saw The Arrows perform "I Love Rock And Roll," which Alan Merrill co-wrote - that story and much more from this glam rock pioneer.
A monthly update on our latest interviews, stories and added songs

Best Gagging
Fucked By Creepy Guy Xxx
Sweet Porn Cam