You're out there playing your high class games of sorrow...
Thirty five years ago this week, David Bowie was riding high on a wave of overwhelming public affection with the publication of various music polls that placed him fairly and squarely where he belonged...at the top.
Coming first in several categories of the Melody Maker poll, the above advert was printed in the popular music weekly to express Bowie's gratitude to the voters.
The following week's music papers had adverts for the new Bowie single, Sorrow, which was released on October 12th, (not September 28th as widely reported) after having been put back a couple of weeks.
Apparently this decision was made by RCA to prevent a chart battle with a little old man in scarlet and grey who had charted mid September. In the end, Sorrow won the race, reaching #3 in the UK singles chart, while the giggly little bloke only reached #6.
The advert above was our first glimpse of the iconic
Originally shot as a Vogue cover, Bowie nabbed the image for his album while the magazine dithered over wether they could have a man on the cover or not...even if he was accompanied by one of the world's most famous models, Twiggy...or Twig The Wonderkid as she was known to Bowie fans.
You can read more regarding this session at
If I recall correctly, the MM ad at the top of this piece was the first glimpse of that
Sorrow was a taster for the forthcoming Pin-Ups, an album of cover versions of Bowie's favourite tunes from the late sixties. He pretty well made the song his own, and to this day there are people surprised to learn that Sorrow is not a Bowie original.
Same goes for the exclusive B-side too, in that Bowie really made it his own. The song was Jacques Brel's Amsterdam and Bowie had a couple of tough acts to follow with both Brel's and Scott Walker's own versions of the song.having been recorded previously.
To these ears, Bowie pulled it off and it not only remains my favourite version to this day, but it's also one of my very favourite Bowie vocal performances of all time too.
We'll talk a little more about the undervalued Pin-Ups album when we celebrate the 35th anniversary of its release next week.