David Bowie Struggled for Years Before a 1971 Rock Song Changed Everything

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David Bowie was David Bowie, and David Bowie lives on, even if he died a decade ago, at the time of writing. He doesn’t literally live on, but his music does, since the best stuff he made was always kind of timeless, and so many of his albums have gotten better as time has marched on, and the world has more or less caught up to what he was doing back when he was doing it. Low might be the best example of this, as if you listen to it for the first time in 2026, you can feel the same way people in 1977 felt when listening to it for the first time (confused, maybe frightened, possibly even frustrated). But then if you listen to it a few more times, you'll be able to feel the same way people listening to it in 1980 might've felt (more appreciative, basically).

But that came during a time when Bowie was pretty well-established, since he was basically a star by the mid-to-late 1970s, and then he exploded further in popularity in the 1980s, even if some of his fans might think he got a little too poppy. But Bowie was always about mixing things up, trying new personas, and experimenting quite often by the standards of a mainstream artist. It’s hard to argue that “Quicksand” was the literal turning point, because it didn’t make him a star, or entirely shed concerns about him being a one-hit wonder, but it was a strong track on a very strong album that’s worth exploring, since it was Hunky Dory that stood as Bowie’s first outright masterpiece of an album. And “Quicksand,” beyond being interesting lyrically, is kind of the centerpiece of that album, being the second-longest track, and being placed right in the middle of the album (the sixth track of 11 in total).

What David Bowie Did Before "Quicksand"

Before the 1970s began, David Bowie was best known for “Space Oddity.” It was the first song on his second self-titled album, and second album overall, though that album is sometimes known as Space Oddity. It’s the “Space Oddity” album. The tracks that follow are a little underrated, and still deserving of attention if you're interested in David Bowie’s early stuff, but that title track (or opening track) was his crowning achievement for the 1960s, and his first hit. But it was the one hit of his, for a while, and so in the couple of years following the success that “Space Oddity” brought, Bowie himself surely felt pressure to show he could keep pushing further and do more.

Next came The Man Who Sold the World, which might've been a little more consistent than the self-titled album with “Space Oddity” on it, but it really lacked a hit, or anything even somewhat hit-adjacent. The title track, “The Man Who Sold the World,” is fairly well-known nowadays, but it wasn’t released as a single back in the 1970s, and might be more famous now for being covered by Nirvana during their MTV Unplugged concert. So, David Bowie kept on going, and struck the right sort of balance between pop sensibilities and experimentation (of a milder sort) with his follow-up to The Man Who Sold the World.

What "Quicksand" Represented for Bowie in 1971

That follow-up was, of course, the very historically significant Hunky Dory. The big tracks here that were great at the time, and still hold up as all-timers, would have to be “Changes” and especially “Life on Mars.” The latter is on par with “Space Oddity” on the musical side of things, and the former has clear thematic weight for Bowie, his mission statement as an artist, and what he wanted to do with Hunky Dory. He’s singing about changes here, and he wanted a change. And then beyond Hunky Dory, he’d keep changing things up, going for more of a glam rock thing with The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, and then, a couple of albums later, doing more by way of soul and funk music.

“Quicksand” is a long song, and it’s an anxious one at times, maybe being the inverse of the slightly bouncier and comparatively optimistic “Changes.”

The changes just didn’t stop. But “Quicksand.” What about “Quicksand?” What is “Quicksand” about? It’s harder to say, because the lyrics here are kind of obscure, but Bowie was never shy about being ambiguous (is “Heroes” sad or happy, for example? Does it matter? Or does it differ depending on the mood you're in when you hear it?). “Quicksand” is a long song, and it’s an anxious one at times, maybe being the inverse of the slightly bouncier and comparatively optimistic “Changes.” Bowie could change, or change the music industry/pop culture overall (if successful enough, which he was), or he could keep trying and drown in quicksand, so to speak, after enough failures. There’s the good and the bad, or the exploring of two possible outcomes, when you compare and contrast Hunky Dory’s opening song, “Changes,” with “Quicksand,” the track that concludes its first side.

Where David Bowie Went Following the Release of "Quicksand" and 'Hunky Dory'

Would it be lazy to say “and the rest is history,” or would it be sensible? Like, there is so much to say beyond “Quicksand” and Hunky Dory, since David Bowie kept going to interesting and adventurous places as an artist (and actor, sometimes) for the 45 years that followed the release of Hunky Dory, culminating in the excellent and bittersweet Blackstar (2016). Focusing on the years following Hunky Dory, though, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars was absolutely perfect, for example, and then so too were the likes of Aladdin Sane, Station to Station, Low, and maybe even Heroes (well, "Heroes" makes that album an all-timer). And all those are only from the 1970s. Almost every decade saw him doing more than most musicians would be able to do on their own in a lifetime, and he made the switching between personas, styles, and genres thing look so incredibly easy.

In fact, he did it so much and so well that, 10 years on from his death, it’s still pretty much impossible to know who the real David Bowie was. The mystery is one of the reasons he’s still interesting, and his music is so worthy of being returned to time and again, but also, the music is just great. The music is what matters, and even if you don’t want to get analytical or “solve” David Bowie and who he was (if such a thing is even possible), so much of the music holds up, and lots of it sounds ahead of its time, too. Hunky Dory is a good starting point, really, since you get a good balance of genres here, and a mix of faster songs alongside some ballads. It’s also got “Quicksand” on it, and that doesn’t hurt either.

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