Bowie’s Literary Influences

I came across this video discussing Bowie’s literary influences. I think it’s well done and a good summary of what for the most part is pretty well known among fans. In some cases, such as the influence of Orwell’s 1984 on Diamond Dogs, the influence is pretty obvious, and in others, such as the influence of A Clockwork Orange on songs including “Suffragette City” and “Girl Loves Me” is obvious to anyone familiar with both the book and the song lyrics. But there are other, less obvious insights in this video, and I like the framing around an actual discussion Bowie had with William S. Burroughs. The most striking insight here, art least for me, is that the young Bowie told Burroughs that not only was his song, “Eight Line Poem,” unrelated to “The Wasteland” (which never occurred to me in the first place), but that he was unfamiliar with the poem and didn’t know who T. S. Eliot was. How is that possible?

Anyway, i thought this video was worth watching, so here it is…