The Jean Genie

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"The Jean Genie"
David Bowie
publication November 24, 1972
length 4 min 7 s
Genre (s) Art-Rock
Experimental
Author (s) David Bowie
Producer (s) David Bowie, Ken Scott
Label RCA Records
album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars

The Jean Genie is a song by the English singer-songwriter David Bowie that was originally released in November 1972 as the single for his 1973 album Aladdin Sane . According to Bowie, it is an "imaginary American" that Iggy Pop inspired him to create . The title was an allusion to the writer Jean Genet . The Jean Genie is arguably one of the most famous pieces by David Bowie. The Jean Genie reached number 2 on the UK Singles Chart .

Recording and background

According to author Nicholas Pegg, The Jean Genie began as an impromptu jam called Bussin on the touring bus between the first two concerts in Cleveland and Memphis when Mick Ronson began playing the Bo Diddley- inspired guitar on his new Gibson Les Paul . It later became the first song that Bowie composed for the album Aladdin Sane during his US tour in the fall of 1972 , and the song was completed in New York City . Here he also spent most of the time with Andy Warhol and Cyrinda Foxe in the studio. Bowie later claimed, "I wrote the song in her apartment for Cyrinda's pleasure, Sexy girl." Bowie later described the song as "a hodgepodge of imaginary Americans" and "my first New York song" in the 1990s. The recording took place on October 6, 1972 in the New York RCA studios . Mixing occurred the following week at RCA Studio B in Nashville, Tennessee . The original mix of singles is recorded in normal stereo, while the soundscape in the album mix has been changed by broadening the stereo base .

Music and lyrics

The song's chugging R&B riff is often compared to the Yardbirds , especially their cover of Bo Diddley's I'm a Man , but was most likely adapted by French singer Jacques Dutronc's La Fille du Père Noël (1966), while the lyrics are titled “ stylized shabbiness ”by Velvet Underground . The theme was inspired in part by Bowie's friend Iggy Pop , or as Bowie put it in his own words, "an Iggy type character ... but it wasn't really Iggy." The line “He's so simple-minded, he can't control his module” (“He's so simple minded, he can't drive his module”) later gave the band Simple Minds their name.

The title has long been understood as an allusion to the writer Jean Genet . Bowie was once quoted as saying that this was "subconscious ... but probably it's there, yes". In 2005 he stated this less ambiguously in his book Moonage Daydream: “Started out as a light riff thing that I wrote one night in NY for Cyrinda's amusement, I developed the lyrics to the otherwise wordless pumper and it eventually turned a bit too a hodgepodge of imaginary Americans ... based on an Iggy (Pop) -like person ... The title was of course an awkward play on words with Jean Genet ”.

Music video

Mick Rock directed a music video promoting the song, which was filmed in San Francisco in October 1972. He mixed concert and studio recordings of Bowie where he performed with the Spiders From Mars, as well as the recordings at the Mars Hotel where he posed with Cyrinda Foxe . Bowie wanted the video to portray Ziggy as a kind of Hollywood street rat with a “ Marilyn Monroe mate ”. This led to Foxe's casting, and she flew from New York to San Francisco specifically for the filming.

Bowie also recorded The Jean Genie for Top of the Pops , which aired on January 4, 1973. Unusually for the time, the four-piece band performed live, including an extended guitar solo by Mick Ronson . The tapes of this edition of Top of the Pops were subsequently erased, but a copy was made by BBC cameraman John Henshall, who used the then new fisheye lens camera technology for the recording . Henshall was contacted by music television archivist Ray Langstone, who persuaded John to share his historical material with him. The film has been preserved since then and was shown at the British Film Institute in December 2011 . The BBC re-aired the clip on December 21, 2011 for the first time since it originally aired in January 1973 in its Top of the Pops 2 Christmas Special.

publication

The song The Jean Genie was released on November 24, 1972 by RCA Records (as RCA 2302) as the A-side to Bowie's album Aladdin Sane , with the song Ziggy Stardust as the B-side. He appears on the album as the ninth and penultimate track. It was on the UK Singles Chart for 13 weeks and reached 2nd place. In the US, the single climbed to number 71 on the Billboard Hot100, making it the biggest Bowie hit in the charts to date. He was ousted from the top by Little Jimmy Osmond's Long Haired Lover from Liverpool . While biographer David Buckley described the song as "trite but undeniably catchy," it remains one of Bowie's signature melodies and was often played by him at concerts.

Some controversy arose in the UK when fellow RCA band The Sweet released the song Block Buster! that uses a riff very similar to The Jean Genie . The Sweets single, written by Mike Chapman and Nicky Chinn , was recorded and released as Bowie's song a little later. Block Buster made it to number 1 on the UK charts and number 73 on the US charts while The Jean Genie was still in the UK top 10. According to Nicky Chinn, the similarity is "an absolute coincidence". Chinn described a meeting with Bowie "where he looked at me completely immobile and then said, 'Bitch!' Then he got up, hugged me and then said: 'Congratulations ...' "

title

All songs written by David Bowie.

  1. The Jean Genie - 4:02
  2. Ziggy Stardust - 3:13

On the US version, Hang On to Yourself is on the B-side. On the B-side of the Japanese pressing is John, I'm Only Dancing .

Musician

Producers

Charts

Charts (1972–1973) position
Australia (Kent Music Report) 42
Canada (TOP Singles) 75
Ireland (single charts) 3
UK Singles Chart 2
US Billboard Hot100 71

Live versions

  • A live version recorded in the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium on October 20, 1972, released on Santa Monica '72 and Live Santa Monica '72 , as a bonus disc for the Aladdin Sane - 30th Anniversary Edition in 2003. This version also appeared on the Japanese Release of RarestOneBowie.
  • The song was played at the Hammersmith Odeon on July 3, 1973 , but is not on the Ziggy Stardust - The Motion Picture album. In this special version, Jeff Beck could be heard on guitar.
  • A live version of the first leg of the 1974 tour appeared on David Live . A live recording of the second part of the same tour (previously available on the unofficial album A Portrait in Flesh ) was released on Cracked Actor (Live Los Angeles '74) in 2017 .
  • A live performance recorded on March 23, 1976 was recorded at Live Nassau Coliseum '76 , which was released in 2010 as part of the 2010 reissues of the album Station to Station , 2016 in the box set Who Can I Be Now? (1974-1976) and released as a standalone album in 2017.
  • A live version recorded on May 6, 1978 was included in the 2017 edition of Bowie's live album Stage , which was released in the box set A New Career in a New Town and as a standalone album in 2018.
  • An appearance from the summer of 1978 from the same Isolar II tour was released on Welcome to the Blackout in 2018 .
  • The song was added to the setlist late on Bowie's Glass Spider Tour in 1987 and was released as part of the concert video Glass Spider (1988/2007).
  • Billy Corgan performed the song live with David Bowie at Bowie's 50th birthday concert in January 1997.

Publications

Other publications

  • In the series named after the David Bowie song of the same name, the BBC television series Life on Mars - Caught in the 70s is mentioned by Detective Chief Inspector Gene Hunt, who periodically calls himself "The Gene Genie". In the episode A Conflict of Interests , it is played when they enter the club; in a later scene, while escorting Stephen Warren out of his club, Sweets becomes Block Buster! played with a comparable riff. Hunt refers to himself more often as the "Gene Genie" in the follow-up series Ashes to Ashes (also named after a Bowie song of the same name) and his title music is an instrumental version of The Jean Genie (renamed Gene Genie ) by the series' composer, Edmund Butt, created.
  • The song appears in the 2007 biography of Ian Curtis , Control by Anton Corbijn. In the film, young Curtis sings the song while it is played on a record player in his bedroom; the song continues as the scene changes to Curtis and Debbie who are going to a Bowie concert.

literature

  • David Buckley: Strange Fascination - David Bowie: The Definitive Story . Virgin Books, 1999, ISBN 978-1-85227-784-0 .
  • Kevin Cann: Any Day Now - David Bowie: The London Years: 1947–1974 . Adelita, 2010, ISBN 978-0-9552017-7-6 .
  • Roy Carr, Charles Shaar Murray: Bowie: An Illustrated Record . Eel Pie Pub, 1981, ISBN 978-0-380-77966-6 .
  • Nicholas Pegg: The Complete David Bowie . Reynolds & Hearn Ltd, 2000, ISBN 1-903111-14-5 .
  • Nicholas Pegg: The Complete David Bowie , 6th. Edition, Titan Books, London 2011, ISBN 978-0-85768-290-1 .
  • George Tremlett: David Bowie: Living on the Brink . Carroll & Graf Publishers, 1996, ISBN 0-7867-0465-9 .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Jeff Gordinier: Loving the aliens . In: Entertainment Weekly . No. 656 , May 31, 2002, p. 26-34 (English).
  2. ↑ Dave Thompson, "The Jean Genie" - David Bowie . AllMusic . Retrieved February 8, 2020.
  3. ↑ FAQ; Simple Minds . Simple Minds. Retrieved May 14, 2013.
  4. ^ A b David Bowie & Mick Rock (2005). Moonage Daydream : pp. 140-146
  5. ↑ BAGS: Mick Rock. David Bowie with Cyrinda Foxe, 1972 - TASCHEN Books . Retrieved March 6, 2019.
  6. ↑ a b Top of the Pops 2 , BBC, broadcast December 21, 2011, accessed December 21, 2011 ( archived on December 27, 2011 in the Internet Archive ).
  7. ↑ David Bowie Top of the Pops footage found by cameraman . In: BBC News , December 13, 2011. Retrieved December 14, 2011. 
  8. ↑ a b "The Jean Genie" (single liner notes). David Bowie . UK: RCA Records . 1972. RCA 2302.
  9. ↑ Stephen Thomas Erlewine: Aladdin Sane - David Bowie . AllMusic . Retrieved February 8, 2020.
  10. ^ Mark Blake (Ed.) (2007). "Future Legend", MOJO 60 Years of Bowie : pp 74-75
  11. ↑ Four Bowie Compositions On Control Soundtrack . Retrieved February 8, 2020.
  12. ↑ The Complete David Bowie: New Edition: Expanded and Updated . Titan Books. November 2, 2016. Accessed February 8, 2020.