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Rebel Rebel: All the Songs of David Bowie From '64 to '76
David every single song. Everything you want to know, everything you didn't know. David Bowie remains mysterious and unknowable, despite 45 years of recording and performing. His legacy is roughly 600 songs, which range from psychedelia to glam rock to Philadelphia soul, from avant-garde instrumentals to global pop anthems. Rebel Rebel catalogs Bowie's songs from 1964 to 1976, examines them in the order of their composition and recording, and digs into what makes them work. Rebel Rebel is an in-depth look at Bowie's early singles and album tracks, unreleased demos, session outtakes and cover songs. The book traces Bowie's literary, film and musical influences and the evolution of his songwriting. It also shows how Bowie exploited studio innovations, and the roles of his producers and supporting musicians, especially major collaborators like Brian Eno, Iggy Pop and Mick Ronson. This book places Bowie's music in the context of its era. Readers will discover the links between Kubrick's 2001 and "Space Oddity"; how A Clockwork Orange inspired "Suffragette City". The pages are a trip through Bowie's various lives as a young man in Swinging London, a Tibetan Buddhist, a disillusioned hippie, a rock god, and a Hollywood recluse. With a cast of thousands, including John Lennon, William S. Burroughs, Andy Warhol and Cher.
576 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 27, 2015
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Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
March 24, 2016
One of the many remarkable things about David Bowie's career is that it came so close to not happening. Bowie seems like an archetype of individual genius - even his most misguided detours have something interesting about them, as Chris O'Leary's blog (collected in part in this book) patiently shows. But his career had a multiplicity of false starts - even once he'd scored a big hit, five years in, there was no particular sense he'd become a constant presence in pop. Let alone rewrite or dominate it.
The strength of Rebel Rebel, and of O'Leary's work on Bowie in general, is that he never takes his subject for granted. Writing about a canonised act it's easy to take their rise and talent as inevitable. But Bowie constantly interrogated and pushed his own abilities, and a good critic follows suit. The contingent nature of Bowie's career - the almost-failure of him to come into being - is a constant theme in the blog and book, which fills up with parallel Bowies. Not just the familiar cast - Ziggy, Aladdin, the Thin White Duke - but alternate world Bowies whose fame flickered or stalled, doppelgangers and future selves he meets in song, and evanescent personae who he moved on from before they really got their shot. O'Leary loves to find these alternate Bowies under the skin of his songs, and is never happier than when squirreling after some half-thought-out project or other, like the fragmentary rock operas and sci-fi musicals that became Diamond Dogs. In Rebel Rebel, the song that kickstarts the Bowie we know isn't really "Space Oddity", it's "The Man Who Sold The World", where Bowie meets himself on a staircase and maybe strikes a deal.
Turning a corpus of songs into a blog, entry by entry, week by week, is a punishing task at times, easy to slack off on. A sense of pacing is very much required - which songs get casual overviews, which are the tentpole entries, where you let the readers take up the slack, where you impose yourself on them. On the blog, digressions abounded - O'Leary reminds me a bit of Greil Marcus circa Lipstick Traces, happy to use his subject as a skeleton key to talk about anything else. In Rebel Rebel the side trips feel more reined in, partly because there are fewer illustrative quotes and no pictures to open the story out even more. And some of O'Leary's tarter judgements have been toned down ("Love You Til Tuesday" is no longer "catchy and rancid", sadly) though he is happy to roll his eyes at Bowie when the man deserves it. Set against that there's more emphasis on the music - the bones of the song. Rebel Rebel is stronger on this - and on Bowie's collaborators and their contributions - than any other similar book about anyone, except possibly Rebel Rebel's avowed model, Ian McDonald's Revolution In The Head.
Rebel Rebel isn't just for musicologists, though. O'Leary is perceptive and generous as well as informed, and a lot of the pleasure is in his crisp side observations and similes - Ziggy Stardust, for instance, as a rock'n'roll album where the rock'n'roll "takes place offstage, like naval battles in Shakespeare". And the pacing remains superb in its balance of short, informative pieces and big critical workouts, critic and artist raising their games in unison - the book's climax, an extended look at "Station To Station" framed by Bowie's personal Hollywood apocalypse, is particularly compelling. "Station To Station" also creates an obvious break point between Rebel Rebel and O'Leary's second volume. The two together will be one of the great achievements of single-artist rock criticism.
The strength of Rebel Rebel, and of O'Leary's work on Bowie in general, is that he never takes his subject for granted. Writing about a canonised act it's easy to take their rise and talent as inevitable. But Bowie constantly interrogated and pushed his own abilities, and a good critic follows suit. The contingent nature of Bowie's career - the almost-failure of him to come into being - is a constant theme in the blog and book, which fills up with parallel Bowies. Not just the familiar cast - Ziggy, Aladdin, the Thin White Duke - but alternate world Bowies whose fame flickered or stalled, doppelgangers and future selves he meets in song, and evanescent personae who he moved on from before they really got their shot. O'Leary loves to find these alternate Bowies under the skin of his songs, and is never happier than when squirreling after some half-thought-out project or other, like the fragmentary rock operas and sci-fi musicals that became Diamond Dogs. In Rebel Rebel, the song that kickstarts the Bowie we know isn't really "Space Oddity", it's "The Man Who Sold The World", where Bowie meets himself on a staircase and maybe strikes a deal.
Turning a corpus of songs into a blog, entry by entry, week by week, is a punishing task at times, easy to slack off on. A sense of pacing is very much required - which songs get casual overviews, which are the tentpole entries, where you let the readers take up the slack, where you impose yourself on them. On the blog, digressions abounded - O'Leary reminds me a bit of Greil Marcus circa Lipstick Traces, happy to use his subject as a skeleton key to talk about anything else. In Rebel Rebel the side trips feel more reined in, partly because there are fewer illustrative quotes and no pictures to open the story out even more. And some of O'Leary's tarter judgements have been toned down ("Love You Til Tuesday" is no longer "catchy and rancid", sadly) though he is happy to roll his eyes at Bowie when the man deserves it. Set against that there's more emphasis on the music - the bones of the song. Rebel Rebel is stronger on this - and on Bowie's collaborators and their contributions - than any other similar book about anyone, except possibly Rebel Rebel's avowed model, Ian McDonald's Revolution In The Head.
Rebel Rebel isn't just for musicologists, though. O'Leary is perceptive and generous as well as informed, and a lot of the pleasure is in his crisp side observations and similes - Ziggy Stardust, for instance, as a rock'n'roll album where the rock'n'roll "takes place offstage, like naval battles in Shakespeare". And the pacing remains superb in its balance of short, informative pieces and big critical workouts, critic and artist raising their games in unison - the book's climax, an extended look at "Station To Station" framed by Bowie's personal Hollywood apocalypse, is particularly compelling. "Station To Station" also creates an obvious break point between Rebel Rebel and O'Leary's second volume. The two together will be one of the great achievements of single-artist rock criticism.
February 11, 2019
The ultimate read for a David Bowie fanatic, and I'm clearly in that category. Chris O'Leary covers every Bowie recording from the beginning to Station to Station, and there is also a volume 2 being released shortly. There are a handful of really good Bowie books, and this one is great. O'Leary's book is obsessive (of course) but he's an excellent writer, and the prose never drags. I'm looking forward to volume two edition!
May 24, 2020
For the uber fan. It is very thorough and includes an 'Unheard Music' appendix, copious notes etc. It starts with tracks from 1964 (Bowie 17) and finishes on the track Station to Station which O'Leary calls Bowie's masterpiece with everything before it leading up to it and everything after in its shadow. This was written before Black Star however (Bowie still alive when it was published, although the second volume 'Ashes to Ashes concludes with his death). O'Leary doesn't stint on (deserved) criticism though, calling his cover of the Who track 'I Can't Explain' grotesque (he 'mainly committed the capital Mod sin of being dull').
March 22, 2019
A treasure trove of Bowie info. Every song he ever performed, wrote or recorded. Info on sessions, with players listed. Absolutely essential book for any serious Bowie fan. It is a two volume set. On to volume two.
October 21, 2019
Simply the first serious attempt to give Bowie’s songs the rigorous musical analysis which they deserve. Well, which SOME of them deserve - and O’Leary’s rounding up of Bowie’s earliest compositional efforts is as fascinating as what he has to say about the better known (and better) stuff, providing plenty of information about influences and context, at the same time as offering some thoughtful suggestions about significance (or not). When we come to Bowie’s proper albums O’Leary skilfully balances his own responses with analytical objectivity, and whilst you might not agree with every opinion here (he has some strong ones), they are solidly and convincingly argued throughout. The ‘Pushing Ahead of the Dame’ blog has long been a repository of impressive insight and an incredible level of detail about Bowie’s songs, which absolutely cried out to be turned into a reference book. With revisions of the original online material and a more consistent tone, this is an essential work for any Bowiephile, and a towering achievement by any standard.
April 5, 2015
Being fully honest, I've not finished reading this yet. But I've been reading the blog since Diamond Dogs, and it's some of the best writing on Bowie I've ever encountered. I occasionally comment on the blog as Joe the Lion, but these days I find there's not much to add. O'Leary's take is a personal one, with a lot of research thrown in which makes it authoritative and analytical as well as entertaining and eye-opening.
Bookwise, I'm currently in the Hunky Dory/Ziggy era, and really enjoying the writing all over again - revised from the blog, but just as good.
Bookwise, I'm currently in the Hunky Dory/Ziggy era, and really enjoying the writing all over again - revised from the blog, but just as good.
July 12, 2015
This is a phenominal piece of work. It is factual, literary, written with a level of craft, skill and care that is usually missing in music-related books "these days". My only disappointment is that it didn't cover Bowie's entire history and stopped at Station to Station; hopefully that bodes for a second and third volume in the future. I really cannot recommend this book enough; I was already acquainted with the author's work from his blog and the finished work just exceeded all expectations.
December 31, 2021
David Bowie was one of the most influential recording artists of all time and blah, blah, blah. He was great. We all know it. We love him. Moving on to the book.
This book covers every single song that there is a record of Bowie recording from the very beginning of his career through Station To Station in 1976 (the one that he had no recollection of recording because he was so hopped up on cocaine.) Not just what is on his records, but songs that he played live (if there is a viable recording of it somewhere, legit or otherwise) or recorded in the studio and gave up on after one quick demo. I love books like this because it really gets in depth into what was going on in the artist's head and life when they wrote and recorded the song. It's just about the best way to write a biography of a musical artist.
Chris O'Leary obviously loves Bowie, but he is pretty critical of some of his best work. Like, Ziggy Stardust is one of his best albums, but O'Leary almost seems to think that it's a bit of a hack job with songs that just don't fit. Sure, the "concept" doesn't really hold up at all, but it's still pretty great.
But that's fine. Everyone has their opinions and O'Leary doesn't let his get in the way of a good story of a song that he doesn't enjoy. It's almost more fun when he doesn't really like the song.
The part that wasn't fun for me, but might be for serious musicians, is how in the weeds he gets on the song structure and the chord progressions. I played trumpet in high school band. That's about the end of my musicianly education. I have no idea what he was talking about for about 1/4 of the book. I wish I did! And I think that this book would be perfect for someone who is into that and the stories. That way you know what was behind the song AND how complex the structure of every chorus is.
But I liked the book enough to give it four stars and I'm going to read the second book (Ashes To Ashes), which covers the rest of his career through Blackstar, his final album.
This book covers every single song that there is a record of Bowie recording from the very beginning of his career through Station To Station in 1976 (the one that he had no recollection of recording because he was so hopped up on cocaine.) Not just what is on his records, but songs that he played live (if there is a viable recording of it somewhere, legit or otherwise) or recorded in the studio and gave up on after one quick demo. I love books like this because it really gets in depth into what was going on in the artist's head and life when they wrote and recorded the song. It's just about the best way to write a biography of a musical artist.
Chris O'Leary obviously loves Bowie, but he is pretty critical of some of his best work. Like, Ziggy Stardust is one of his best albums, but O'Leary almost seems to think that it's a bit of a hack job with songs that just don't fit. Sure, the "concept" doesn't really hold up at all, but it's still pretty great.
But that's fine. Everyone has their opinions and O'Leary doesn't let his get in the way of a good story of a song that he doesn't enjoy. It's almost more fun when he doesn't really like the song.
The part that wasn't fun for me, but might be for serious musicians, is how in the weeds he gets on the song structure and the chord progressions. I played trumpet in high school band. That's about the end of my musicianly education. I have no idea what he was talking about for about 1/4 of the book. I wish I did! And I think that this book would be perfect for someone who is into that and the stories. That way you know what was behind the song AND how complex the structure of every chorus is.
But I liked the book enough to give it four stars and I'm going to read the second book (Ashes To Ashes), which covers the rest of his career through Blackstar, his final album.
June 19, 2025
Ian MacDonald's classic
Revolution in the Head by Ian MacDonald
inspired many people, no doubt, to attempt the same feat on their own favoured artist. The Beatles had a nicely defined, complete output that covered only eight years and it's tempting to argue that you could select a similarly short period from David Bowie's life and gather all the most essential recordings. This nearly does that; if you started a little later than '64 and then included Low and "Heroes" you'd probably be fine. But the subtitle says "All the Songs of David Bowie from '64 to '76", and it's really not kidding, and since Bowie made so many false starts that means including a lot of fairly dull juvenalia. As a result, there's quite a bit of the book that's quite hard going, even allowing for the very fragmented nature of splitting into a commentary on individual songs. But once we reach the real hits, the narrative lights up and by the time we get to Station to Station (where this book ends), O'Leary is doing a superb job highlighting just how outré Bowie's records were for a mass-market rock star. Bowie was the first "serious" rock artist I got into as a teenager, and I'm so familiar with tracks like "Sweet Thing/Candidate" or "Station to Station" that's it good to be reminded how far away from blues-based rock they actually are - the closing essay on the latter is fantastic. It took me a while to get through (partly because I insisted on listening to each track while reading about it) but worth it. I'm a bit scared of the next book though - it's twice the size!
July 15, 2024
I have been finding Pushing Ahead of the Dame for years when I search about this or that Bowie song. The structure of the book is based on the blog's articles about each song every recorded by Bowie or touched by him directly in any way (i.e. production, writing, backing vox, anything).
Bonus points for completeness and obsession, the structure of trying to reassemble a strict cronological order for each recording session and the remakes or live outings of the songs is also very interesting.
Of course, all of this would not matter an iota to most people in the world, this is only for completist Bowie fans like myself, and it has of course driven me to revise and revisit each album I own (and some I didn't ever think of buying) in sequence, while reading about them, or immediately after, sometimes re-listening to extremely familiar songs with new "eyes" in my ears.
In the process, a biography of sorts and a map of aesthetic influences emerge, which are the most interesting bits apart from exactly how a particular track was made, its background story, references, allussions, sources. Detailed notes on harmony and structure may stump the non-musician fan, but are priceless for the rest of us.
The author is merciless with what he perceives as blunders and does not gloss over what he considers the lesser tracks. But I do believe that he goes a bit too much with the contemporary critical consensus about some records and songs. While it is OK to try and avoid personal taste, his slamming down of much loved songs and albums is only bound to get much, much worse in the next book covering 1977-2016 (notably the period from 84 to 91, which is currently asessed as Bowie's nadir).
Bonus points for completeness and obsession, the structure of trying to reassemble a strict cronological order for each recording session and the remakes or live outings of the songs is also very interesting.
Of course, all of this would not matter an iota to most people in the world, this is only for completist Bowie fans like myself, and it has of course driven me to revise and revisit each album I own (and some I didn't ever think of buying) in sequence, while reading about them, or immediately after, sometimes re-listening to extremely familiar songs with new "eyes" in my ears.
In the process, a biography of sorts and a map of aesthetic influences emerge, which are the most interesting bits apart from exactly how a particular track was made, its background story, references, allussions, sources. Detailed notes on harmony and structure may stump the non-musician fan, but are priceless for the rest of us.
The author is merciless with what he perceives as blunders and does not gloss over what he considers the lesser tracks. But I do believe that he goes a bit too much with the contemporary critical consensus about some records and songs. While it is OK to try and avoid personal taste, his slamming down of much loved songs and albums is only bound to get much, much worse in the next book covering 1977-2016 (notably the period from 84 to 91, which is currently asessed as Bowie's nadir).
January 14, 2025
Because I'd read - and reread - lots of these entries before I had never actually read this cover to cover. A truly great book ultimately about the 1960s, about its last adherent who managed to stage his own 1960s, cannily pitching himself against his elders whilst being one of them. O'Leary convincingly posits Station to Station as an Edenic fall for its singer, who will never again believe in music as a centrally important societal force in the way he does 1969-76. This fall creates some (much?) of the best music of Bowie's career, but he's completely right to identify this turning point and evidences it beautifully.
This is diamond standard music criticism for me, exactly as interested and precise about what is happening in the music as the specifics in the wider culture that are informing it. Chris O'Leary's tone, humour, reverence and scathe are perfectly pitched and balanced. I hope this gets its proper recognition when it is rereleased by Repeater this year, it deserves to.
This is diamond standard music criticism for me, exactly as interested and precise about what is happening in the music as the specifics in the wider culture that are informing it. Chris O'Leary's tone, humour, reverence and scathe are perfectly pitched and balanced. I hope this gets its proper recognition when it is rereleased by Repeater this year, it deserves to.
December 30, 2020
Not really a daily reading book but I was able to turn it into one. I read about one song per day, and then listened to the song while reading on my music service.
To the author's credit there are a number of tracks not generally available on my music service, but everything else was available on YouTube.
Great in-depth history of Bowie and very in depth analysis of the music by an author whom I suspect is a drummer. Amazing depth of research and inclusion of Bowie quotes from innumerable sources. When I finished this book in August, I moved on to his Volume 2: Ashes to Ashes.
If you are a Bowie fan, I highly recommend the book as well as the music that really accompanies the book well. The author points out details of each song that I had never noticed before. This happened almost every day, and I had previously listened to some of these songs dozens of times.
When I'm done with Ashes to Ashes I plan to continue this new tradition with other artists.
To the author's credit there are a number of tracks not generally available on my music service, but everything else was available on YouTube.
Great in-depth history of Bowie and very in depth analysis of the music by an author whom I suspect is a drummer. Amazing depth of research and inclusion of Bowie quotes from innumerable sources. When I finished this book in August, I moved on to his Volume 2: Ashes to Ashes.
If you are a Bowie fan, I highly recommend the book as well as the music that really accompanies the book well. The author points out details of each song that I had never noticed before. This happened almost every day, and I had previously listened to some of these songs dozens of times.
When I'm done with Ashes to Ashes I plan to continue this new tradition with other artists.
April 5, 2019
An entetaining exhaustive look at all of Bowie's songs from 1964-1976.
Rebel reveals that Bowie was even more the musical magpie than the chameleon he is more famously well known for. He gleefully grabs snatches of songs and influences that coalesce in that amazing brain of his. He is also unrepentantly an acquirer of his collaborators ideas and of absorbing them into his songs.
O'leary is not afraid to call bullshit on a song that deserves it, or consequently praise one that deserves it. his discourse on Station to Station is worth the price of admission alone.
Looking forward to tackling the mammoth Ashes to Ashes which covers from the Berlin Trilogy to Blackstar.
Rebel reveals that Bowie was even more the musical magpie than the chameleon he is more famously well known for. He gleefully grabs snatches of songs and influences that coalesce in that amazing brain of his. He is also unrepentantly an acquirer of his collaborators ideas and of absorbing them into his songs.
O'leary is not afraid to call bullshit on a song that deserves it, or consequently praise one that deserves it. his discourse on Station to Station is worth the price of admission alone.
Looking forward to tackling the mammoth Ashes to Ashes which covers from the Berlin Trilogy to Blackstar.
June 8, 2020
i've finally wormed my way through the first major percentage of bowie's career! i've loved him piecemeal since high school, then suddenly with much more drama in college, but there's such a mass of his music i'm unfamiliar with that reading this alongside the albums i've both heard and never heard before has been fascinating. o'leary is a very smart and funny critic and i love when he gets into the hyper specific intricacies of something like station to station as much as i do when he takes the piss out of garbage like pin ups. i have a new appreciation after this for bowiesongs i would never have cared for and i also am like even more cosmically fascinated with what i already loved.
April 24, 2018
Part biography, part discography and part musicological study, Chris O'Leary's long-awaited first volume in the Bowiesongs series analyzes the music, lyrics, compositional methods and sociological and personal backgrounds of every song Bowie wrote or recorded from the dawn of his career to his mid-Seventies escape to Europe. With longer essays on epics like "Space Oddity or "Station to Station," and extended digging into even the lesser songs, this could be the most essential Bowie book on the market.
February 1, 2021
Reading this book while listening through Bowie’s discography has been one of the best experiences of anything I’ve had in a long time. O’Leary’s writing is absolutely phenomenal, as it picks up on connections between his early work to his latter days, creating a full portrait of the artist as a man of many masks and shifting beliefs. As a huge Bowie fan, this book has enriched my enjoyment of his songs, and I think it’s an essential read for any Bowie über-fan out there.
December 27, 2020
Song by song - going through his early albums through Station to Station with recording information, background on lyrics and what was happening in Bowie's life and career, while adding in some musical analysis. A fascinating read. Clearly something you can take time reading as there is no true narrative thread.
February 16, 2021
A track by track account of Bowie's rise to fame from humble beginnings in Brixton to mega fame in exile in Switzerland. Who would've thought that "The Laughing Gnome" was by no means the low point. Check out "Over The Wall We Go (All Coppers Are Nanas)". As for the lost track "I'd Like A Big Girl With A Couple Of Melons" it's probably for the best that we will never hear it.
June 14, 2020
Een drielagig boek: een biografie, teksten en muziek. Omdat ik helaas geen si uit een la haal, mis ik dus een derde. Maar de feiten, anekdotes en spitsvondig giswerk omtrent de andere twee lagen zijn ruimschoots voldoende om zelfs verstokte fans te verrassen.
November 2, 2020
Frábær blanda af sleggjudómum, fróðleik og innsæi. Ég er var ekki alltaf sammála mati höfundar en honum tókst þó að vekja mig til umhugsunar um þau (næstum) öll. Mæli einlæglega með fyrir alla Bowienörda.
August 10, 2018
’Revolution in my Head' for early Bowie instead of the Beatles. Love it all except the paragraphs about chord structure which bore me to tears.
February 24, 2019
I loved this book. Are there other books like this about other artists? I'm not sure how to search for this genre. Is it musicology?
March 7, 2021
Esencial. Lleno de conocimiento que me supera y de anécdotas desconocidas, este tomo es necesario para todo fan.
October 7, 2023
Man this author likes Station To Station.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 11, 2024
Full disclosure: I love David Bowie. This book is well researched and thorough and I learned new things about songs I've loved for decades.
June 21, 2025
gorgeous prose about music i love so obviously 5/5. excited to tackle ashes to ashes!
January 17, 2016
Indispensable. A must have. Been a longtime fan of the blog that created the basis of this book, and the deep, deep and exhaustive background given each song is a true pleasure to read. A true Bowie Bible. Can't wait for the following volumes.
August 11, 2016
This is a great resource, even if you've kept up (as I did) with the Pushing Ahead of the Dame blog. What surprised me, however, was how well this works as a straight through narrative read. Even broken down by song, Bowie's career arc is fascinating. I can't wait for the second volume.
February 12, 2016
As a critique of Bowie's recorded work from juvenilia to Dukedom, this is an impeccable piece of work. Intelligent, diligent, thoughtful and considered, often throwing fresh light onto its subject.
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