The Story Behind Aladdin Sane By David Bowie

Thirty-five years pass him, Like an evening at the Circus…

BowieNetter Dez recently posted a 1.600 word stream of consciousness celebration of Aladdin Sane on the BowieNet MBs.

In the post, Dez imagined his version of the album’s artistic genesis and tried to identify who some of the characters that populated the album may have been in real life.

While reading his words bells started ringing as I seemed to remember DB talking about these very things personally.

Then sure enough I recalled a copy of Circus magazine from July ’73 (above) that had a five-page feature wherein “David Bowie sat in his posh New York hotel room writing about the sequinned crowd who had danced across his carpet until dawn, and Circus Magazine got the inside scoop.”.

It’s a great read with a glimpse into Bowie’s writing methods of the time. Go here to see the bit that specifically talks about one of the scenes Dez imagined: Shakey‘s party!