When David Bowie died in 2016, he left a vast musical legacy – and a trove of unrealized projects. Tantalizing details of those abandoned and unfinished ideas are revealed in Bowie’s archive, which recently opened to the public at the David Bowie Centre in London.
The 90,000 items acquired from the late singer’s estate include handwritten notes for a movie in which Major Tom, the fictional astronaut “sitting in a tin can far above the world” in Bowie’s song “Space Oddity,” is sent to “a disgruntled America.”
Other might-have-beens include “The Spectator,” a stage musical about an 18th-century London outlaw that Bowie was working on shortly before his death from cancer in January 2016 at the age of 69.
The centre is a treasure chest for Bowie fans and researchers, holding everything from stage outfits and musical instruments – a stringed Japanese koto, Ziggy Stardust’s acoustic guitar – to letters, lyrics, photos, to-do lists and idea-filled sticky notes.
The archive chronicles five decades of restless creativity by the shape-shifting musician, who was born plain old David Jones in the London suburbs in 1947.
The archive occupies part of the V&A East Storehouse (part of the Victoria & Albert Museum), a hybrid warehouse-museum that opened in June in east London’s Olympic Park. As with the storehouse as a whole, visitors can book appointments to see any of the items for free – and in many cases handle them, under supervision.
Since the bookings site opened this month, the most requested item is a distressed frock coat that Bowie created with British fashion designer Alexander McQueen for his 50th birthday concert at Madison Square Garden in 1997.
About 200 items are displayed in cabinets in the archive’s main room, a selection made in consultation with local 18- to 25-year-olds as part of a project to provide opportunities for local young people
Some of the items are iconic, others delightfully mundane. There’s the key to the Berlin apartment Bowie shared with Iggy Pop in the 1970s, and his Rarotonga driver’s license from a period filming the 1983 movie “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence” on the South Pacific island.
Bowie also kept many items sent to him by fans, including drawings, paintings and a handmade music box.
Almost a decade after his death, Bowie is a musical icon whose influence on popular culture endures. But it wasn’t always that way. The archive includes a letter written by Bowie’s father, Haywood Stenton Jones, trying to get teenage David, then a struggling musician, a job with a London company. His son was a hard worker and “a real trooper,” Jones stressed.
Next to it is displayed a brief rejection letter Bowie received from The Beatles’ record label in 1968.
“Apple Records is not interested in signing David Bowie,” it reads. “The reason is we don’t feel he’s what we’re looking for at the moment.”
Oh, and in case you thought we forgot – a song (we did hint in the headline)!
Lyrics
Do you remember a guy that’s been
In such an early song
I’ve heard a rumour from Ground Control
Oh no, don’t say it’s true
They got a message from the Action Man
“I’m happy. Hope you’re happy, too.
I’ve loved. All I’ve needed: love.
Sordid details following.”
The shrieking of nothing is killing me
Just pictures of Jap girls in synthesis
And I ain’t got no money and I ain’t got no hair
But I’m hoping to kick but the planet is glowing
Ashes to ashes, funk to funky
We know Major Tom’s a junkie
Strung out in heaven’s high
Hitting an all-time low
Time and again I tell myself
I’ll stay clean tonight
But the little green wheels are following me
Oh, no, not again
I’m stuck with a valuable friend
“I’m happy. Hope you’re happy, too.”
One flash of light
But no smoking pistol
I never done good things
I never done bad things
I never did anything out of the blue,
Want an axe to break the ice
Wanna come down right now
Ashes to ashes, funk to funky
We know Major Tom’s a junkie
Strung out in heaven’s high
Hitting an all-time low
My mama said, “To get things done
You’d better not mess with Major Tom.”
My mama said, “To get things done
You’d better not mess with Major Tom.”
My mama said, “To get things done
You’d better not mess with Major Tom.”
My mama said, “To get things done
You’d better not mess with Major Tom.”
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