You’ll never know the real story…
In the ‘Ask Q’ section of December’s issue of Q magazine, is a question from reader David Plant of Ontario :-
“I vaguely remember hearing a story about how the David Bowie song, Joe The Lion, off ‘Heroes’, was about an artist who nailed himself to the roof of a car. True?”
The answer draws from an interview David gave to huH magazine in Sept 95:-
“Yes, this actually happened. Bowie has said the song – with its line “Nail me to my car, tell you who you are” – was inspired by the Californian conceptual/performance artist Chris Burden….”
We covered this well-known story last year, when the Q writers selected the song for their ‘On Heavy Rotation’ section, (12/30/00 SNIPPET:Q WRITERS LOVE JOE THE LION ) but it remains no less fascinating. You can go here to listen to an audio clip of Chris Burden talking about the 1974 performance in an interview he gave at the Royal Academy Of Fine Arts, Stockholm in Feb 1999, and here to read more of the 1995 interview with David.
:))