“The Key Is to Come Out the Other Side”: The John Lennon Advice David Bowie First Ignored, but Later Came In Handy

The music business is a cutthroat one, and while the entertainers are the center of the industry, they can also sometimes be disposable and expendable individuals who can be replaced or taken advantage of at the drop of a hat. And if they don’t play their cards right, even the most successful entertainers can fall victim to this. One massive entertainer who was a victim of this was David Bowie.

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David Bowie launched onto the worldwide mainstream in 1972 with the release of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. At the time, Bowie was only 25 years old. He was cocky, naive, and not entirely aware of the unfair practices in the music industry. According to Bowie, John Lennon both warned him and gave him advice on the subject. However, at first, Bowie didn’t listen, but the advice came in handy years later.

Why Lennon’s Wise Words Came Reentered David Bowie’s World

By 1976, David Bowie was one of the world’s biggest entertainers. Following The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, Bowie scored major success with singles such as “Fame”, “Golden Years”, “Young Americans”, and “Rebel Rebel”. Thanks to these singles, Bowie had made a major shift in the music industry. Though he still believed he’d been “ripped off blind.”

Talking with Playboy in 1976, Bowie revealed his plight and how Lennon’s advice helped him acknowledge the hardship at hand. He told Playboy, “All I’ve made is an impact and a change, which, of course, is worth a lot. I keep telling myself that.”

“John Lennon has been through it all. John told me, ‘Stick with it. Survive. You’ll really go through the grind, and they’ll rip you off right and left. The key is to come out the other side.’” Bowie added, “I said something cocky at the time like, ‘I’ve got a great manager. Everything is great. I’m a Seventies artist.’ The last time I spoke to John, I told him he was right. I’d been ripped off blind.”

David Bowie didn’t go into too much detail about how the music industry had “ripped [him] off blind.” Nonetheless, this story is a testament to the timeless lesson of not disregarding the advice of your elders. Whatever it was that kept David Bowie down in 1976, he evidently recovered from it. And while it’s not for certain, it seems John Lennon’s small tidbit of advice had a significant role in Bowie’s internal arc.

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