Over 50 Years Ago, David Bowie and John Lennon Teamed Up to Write a No.1 Hit Song by Accident

1975 was the year one of the greatest collaborations in the history of music happened. David Bowie was at the peak of his career. He'd had his commercial breakthrough in 1972 with the release of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, and had previously enjoyed great success with his legendary single, "Space Oddity." But he had yet to conquer the American charts. That didn't happen until 1975, and in a way that surprised even Bowie himself. In 1974, he got to meet one of his greatest heroes, and thanks to that meeting, a number-one single was born.

David Bowie Was Terrified to Meet John Lennon

David Bowie was and still is one of the greatest musicians of the 20th century, but even he had his greatest heroes. Much like all the musicians of his generation, he was a huge fan of The Beatles. So, when he had the opportunity to meet John Lennon, he was equal parts excited and terrified. The two legends were at a party hosted by Elizabeth Taylor, and Bowie knew Lennon was there, but was scared to approach him. It was his producer, Tony Visconti, who offered to accompany him so he could meet his hero, and Bowie remembered the meeting as being polite but pleasant.

"I think we were polite with each other, in that kind of older-younger way," Bowie explained. Apparently, he didn't have to introduce himself, since Lennon knew who he was, and treated him like an up-and-coming artist, which intimidated Bowie. "I was sort of, ‘It’s John Lennon!’ I don’t know what to say. ‘Don’t mention The Beatles, you’ll look really stupid.’”

Visconti explained that, despite the awkward first meeting, Lennon took a liking to Bowie. The pair became friends, and months later, when Lennon invited him to hang out in his hotel room, Bowie once again asked his producer to join, since he was nervous about being alone with the Beatle. The two musicians spent hours in silence, just drawing caricatures of each other with charcoal. It was a confusing but clearly intimate friendship. The next year, Lennon visited his friend when he was recording his album Young Americans in New York City, and that meeting sparked a collaboration that changed Bowie's career forever.

Lennon and Bowie's Amazing Collaboration

When John Lennon went to visit him at his studio, David Bowie was working with James Brown's former guitar player, Carlos Alomar. Bowie started playing around with a riff from a song Alomar had written, and they planned on turning that riff into a new song for Bowie's Young Americans. When Lennon heard the riff, he thought it was amazing, and since he didn't know the original song, he just started singing nonsense over it. His mutterings sounded, to Bowie, like the word "fame," and it sparked an idea in his head. He started writing about that concept, using Alomar's riff as a guide. While Lennon didn't contribute lyrically beyond that word, Bowie shared songwriting credits with him, as he was the one to inspire the song. Lennon played guitar and sang backing vocals on the song, and "Fame" reached number one on the American and Canadian charts in 1975, making it Bowie's first number one on the North American charts.

That day changed Bowie's life forever, not just because of the incredible success of the song, but because Lennon shared some great songwriting advice, which paved the way for his '80s transformation. In the '80s, especially in 1983 with Let's Dance, he switched from avant-garde to dance music, and it was Lennon's advice that made that possible.

In 1983, he described his latest musical journey as a period of "reorganizing," and explained how Lennon influenced him. "I’ll never forget something John Lennon told me; we were talking about writing, and I had always admired the way he used to cut through so much of the bulls***, just come straight to the point with what he wanted to say." "He said, ‘It’s very easy — all you have to do is say what you mean, make it rhyme and put a backbeat to it’, and I keep coming back to that principle as a writer."

This iconic collaboration between two legendary artists who are no longer with us will stand the test of time, as will all of Bowie's music, no matter how much time passes.