Barry Walters Preview

My interview guest tomorrow will be Barry Walters, award-winning contributor to Rolling Stone, NPR, Pitchfork, Out, the Los Angeles Times, and more, to discuss his book, Mighty Real: A History of LGBTQ Music 1969-2000. Although the book is not about Bowie, he plays a prominent role in the story and probably pops up more than any other single artist. It’s a fascinating discussion; Barry is an excellent conversationalist, and the book is really compelling.

Something I’ve learned from writing this blog and putting together my show is that Bowie’s androgyny and sexual orientation are foundational to many fans’ appreciation of him, and virtually (or totally) unknown to others. I think this has to do with the point at which a casual fan would have been introduced to Bowie. Bowie said that he was gay “and always have been” in 1972, and had been building up to it for a while. To say that type of openness was unusual at the time is an understatement. It just wasn’t done, at least not among rock and rollers trying to achieve notoriety. Bowie, instead, leaned into his sexuality as part of his public persona, though exactly how he identified was seldom as clear as that statement. By 1976, Bowie called himself bisexual, and in 1983, during the height of his mainstream appeal, he said that his past declaration of bisexuality was a mistake.

By 2002, Bowie explained the explanation, and I think this deserves a more extended quote because it is less well-known than the above statements:

“I don’t think it was a mistake in Europe, but it was a lot tougher in America. I had no problem with people knowing I was bisexual. But I had no inclination to hold any banners or be a representative of any group of people. I knew what I wanted to be, which was a songwriter and a performer, and I felt that bisexuality became my headline over here for so long. America is a very puritanical place, and I think it stood in the way of so much I wanted to do.”

Walters told me that he sympathized with this explanation of his 1983 remark. I’d add that Bowie never entirely shook the association, even after he got married to Iman and became a father for the second time (certainly his first marriage was famously open, with both husband and wife publicly identifying as bisexual). What do I mean by this?

Back in the early 70s, Bowie was not only identifying himself as gay, but recording several gay-themed songs such as “Queen Bitch” (1971) and “Lady Stardust” (1972). Some songs that didn’t make it onto albums, like “Looking for a Friend” (1971) and “Sweet Head” (1972) were even more explicit. Meanwhile, his attire, affectation, and occasional fellating of Mick Ronson’s guitar got the point across.

But if Bowie’s 1976 claim to bisexuality seemed like a subtle shift from saying that he was gay and always had been, his overall presentation had become more subtle by the late 70s, too. With the famous line from “Rebel Rebel” (1974) about “your mother” not knowing if you’re a boy or a girl serving as a farewell to the Glam movement, Bowie’s next album, Young Americans, really didn’t have any discernible trace of LGBTQ themes. That carried over for the next several albums until Lodger (1979), which included “Boys Keep Swinging,” which had a title that suggested it might have been Bowie’s gayest song yet. But the actual lyrics really are more making fun of the conventions of male privilege (though the line about other boys checking you out was slightly suggestive). At the same time, Bowie’s video for that song included him in drag, playing three separate female backup singers. That year he appeared wearing a skirt suit, tights, and heels on Saturday Night Live for his performance of “TVC 15” (you can hear his collaborator, Joey Arias, talk about it in my recent interview with him, which I’ll embed below). These manifestations of androgyny were less overtly sexual than some of his earlier material but nonetheless, still queer.

Bowie seemed, at least on the surface, to project heterosexuality during most of the 80s. The “China Girl” video depicts Bowie making out with the model and actress Geeling Ng. This is when he made the “mistake” comment, for which I can accept his 2002 explanation, but at the time it seemed like he was just repudiating his past statements.

And yet… And yet, Bowie included a cover of “Criminal World,” by a band called Metro, that is usually interpreted as having what Bowie chronicler Nick Pegg referred to as “bisexual propositions.” Bowie changed the lyrics and toned it down, but why did he include it on Let’s Dance in the first place? I don’t know myself, but I like to think it was meant as a coded nod to some of his longtime fans (though the lyric change has also been interpreted as something more akin to another repudiation).

By the 90s, Bowie seemed more comfortable being Bowie. “Hallo Spaceboy” (1995) included the “Rebel Rebel”-like line, “do you like girls or boys? It’s confusing these days.” And, in album art for the album on which it appeared, 1. Outside, Bowie once again appeared in drag. The 1997 video for “Little Wonder” featured what appears to be a female actress as a Ziggy-like character, and in promotional art for “The Stars Are Out Tonight” (2013) video, he and Tilda Swinton dressed up as each other. Blackstar, which revisited many themes from Bowie’s past, included Polari on “Girl Loves Me.” That’s the cant associated with gay men in Britain, especially in the 60s, recalling the gay vernacular of “Queen Bitch.”

Barry Walters’ book focused on the period starting with the year of the Stonewall uprising and ending around the time the internet displaced music as the way for the LGBTQ community to find connection through music. Bowie was a central part of this story. But beyond that, I think Bowie’s continual defiance of expectations about sexual identity had a broader appeal to others who felt rejected by the larger society.

There’s more to write on this topic, but for now, you can hear more by coming back tomorrow for Barry Walters!

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And in case you missed it, here is my interview with Joey Arias: