“It’s just a pop record and it was influenced by the film 2001. That’s all there really is to it. It’s just a statement, not a message, It was merely that the men who landed on the Moon had been plasticised a little and had become automatons. It would be nice to think that they were human beings going up and not bits of America. It’s nothing very deep.”David Bowie (597)

“This is a rather weird little song I wrote because one day when I was very scruffy I got a lot of funny stares from people in the street. The lyrics are what you hear – about a boy whose girlfriend thinks he is socially inferior. I thought it was rather funny really.”David Bowie (598)

“I once wrote a letter I never sent to Hermione, who was a dancer with the Lindsay Kemp mime company. I thought I’d record it instead and send her the record. I think she’s in Greenwich Village now.”David Bowie (598)

“It’s an appraisal of the current revolutionary scene.”David Bowie (597)

“It’s basically three separate points of view about the more militant section of the hippy movement. The movement was a great ideal but something’s gone wrong with it now. I’m not really attacking it but pointing out that the militants have still got to be helped as people – human beings – even if they are going about things all the wrong way.”David Bowie (598)

“Mmm. This is a bit hard to explain without sounding nasty. It was written about my old mate George and is about a girl he used to go out with. It’s how I thought he should see her.”David Bowie (598)

“This is another reflection of Hermione who I was very hung up about.”David Bowie (598)

“The Wild Eyed Boy lives on a mountain and has developed a beautiful way of life. He loves the mountain and the mountain loves him. I suppose in a way he’s rather a prophet figure. The villagers disapprove of the things he has to say and they decide to hang him. He gives up to his fate, but the mountain tries to help him by killing the village. So in fact everything the boy says is taken the wrong way – both by those who fear him AND those who love him, and try to assist.”David Bowie (598)

“Communication has taken away so much from our lives that now it’s almost totally involved in machines rather than ordinary human beings, There’s nobody to talk your troubles over with these days, so this track is about a woman who steals a can of stew, which she desperately needs but can’t afford, from the supermarket and gets caught. ‘The machines looks on “shrieking on the counter” and “spitting by my shoulder”.”David Bowie (598)

“Well we go out on an air of optimism, which I believe in. Things WILL get better. I wrote this after the Beckenham Festival when I was very happy.”David Bowie (598)

“However arrogant and ambitious I think we were in my generation, I think the idea was that if you do something really good, you’d become famous. The emphasis on fame itself is something new. Now it’s, “To be famous you should do what it takes,” which is not the same thing at all. And that, to me, is a big worry. I think it’s done dreadful things to the music industry. There’s such a lot of rubbish, drivel out there.”David Bowie (1038)