David Bowie’s favourite songs have been revealed after a treasure trove of items relating to the Starman singer are set to go on display. Bowie is thought to have produced the handwritten list ahead of a radio appearance.
It includes hits such as Right Here Right Now by Alan Freed and His Rock ’N’ Roll Band, Try Some, Buy Some by Ronnie Spector, and music from Richard Strauss. Bowie’s eclectic playlist ranges from melancholic electro hits to crafted classic pieces. The playlist is among 90,000 pieces that the V&A will display in the David Bowie Centre in east London. The collection contains a host of “handwritten and typed non-fiction writings by David Bowie including a number of lists”.
It offers an insight into not just the music produced by Bowie, but his life as an artist, writer and actor. Bowie, who died aged 69 in 2016, was a life-long hoarder, keeping everything from a badge given to him when he attended the Grammys to a double-ended key for a flat he shared in Berlin with rocker Iggy Pop.
He is said to have kept the artefacts so that one day they could be displayed for all to see. The collection will now be displayed in a multistorey building in Stratford, in a building that was originally designed as the media centre for the 2012 Olympics, but now houses items the V&A couldn’t store in its Kensington Museum, reports The Times.
Another note from Bowie, written in 1995, has a typed list of things the musician deemed were “in” and “out”. Bowie considered spirituality, “chaos surfing”, “no tidy endings”, “reasonable cybernetic systems”, “ennui” and himself as “in”.
While “post-modernism”, “religion”, “irony”, “your 15 minutes”, and of course David Bowie, were among the things he considered “out”. The collection also contains a list of Bowie’s “all time favourites”.
The star paid tribute to two of his top novels on the note. “Jack Kerouak’s (sp!) On the Road and City of Night by John Rechy,” wrote Bowie.
City of Night, Bowie says, “presented me with options that I never dreamed of, that I firmly believed could not exist in Bromley or even Croydon”. The 1963 novel depicts gay hustling in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and New Orleans.
Another exhibit at the David Bowie Centre revealed the singer was working on a stage production when he died. Called The Spectator, it was inspired by 18th-century London.
Of course, Bowie’s extravagant costumes feature heavily in the collection. Among the elaborate get-ups is a legendary black and white gown he wore on Saturday Night Live in 1979.
Anyone wanting to visit the David Bowie Centre can pick five artefacts they wish to see when they visit. “We have the story of Bowie not only as a musician here but also as an artist, writer, actor, designer,” head curator Madeleine Haddon told The Times.
As well as looking at five of the items, there is a permanent exhibition that visitors can check out.
David Bowie’s favourite songs
Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis by Ralph Vaughan Williams (1910)
Four Last Songs by Richard Strauss (1948)
Right Now Right Now by Alan Freed and His Rock ’N’ Roll Band (1956)
True Fine Mama by Little Richard (1957)
Sho Know a Lot About Love by the Hollywood Argyles (1960)
Some Day My Prince Will Come by Miles Davis (1961)
Ecclusiastics by Charles Mingus (1962)
Beck’s Bolero by Jeff Beck (1966)
I Took a Trip on a Gemini Spaceship by Legendary Stardust Cowboy (1968)
Across the Universe by the Beatles (1969)
Try Some, Buy Some by Ronnie Spector (1971)
Mother of Pearl by Roxy Music (1973)
Epsilon in Malaysian Pale by Edgar Froese (1975)
The Electrician by the Walker Brothers (1978)
Tom Violence by Sonic Youth (1986)