Bowie - "It's a Drive-In Saturday"

 

Other-worldly. In the early 1970s, David Bowie really was that rock hero from another planet, the starman waiting in the sky. His words and music sparked the imagination of a new generation of pop fans. The images from the Ziggy Stardust period in 1972 and '73 show an artist taking the early stylings of Glam Rock established by T. Rex and Slade to a whole different level. The front cover of the Ziggy Stardust album plays up the other-worldliness perfectly, as if Bowie had just fallen to earth. And this advert for his 1973 single 'Drive-in Saturday' plays on the other-worldly persona; a cleverly cultivated image and a perfect complement to the music. Drive-in Saturday  is one of the stand-out tracks on the 'Aladdin Sane' album and, for some fans it is one of Bowie's greatest songs. Its setting is a futuristic world where people have forgotten how to make love. When he played the song live soon after he wrote it, Bowie said, "This is after a catastrophe of some kind, and some people are living on the streets and some people are living in domes, and they borrow from one another and try to learn how to pick up the pieces."