Released September 12, 1980 Label RCA Records | Length 6:56 Writer(s) David Bowie | |
Recorded The Power Station, New York, February 1980; Good Earth Studios, London, April 1980 Genre Art rock, new wave, post-punk | ||
"Teenage Wildlife" is a song written by David Bowie in 1980 for the album Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps). Running at almost seven minutes, the song was the longest track on Scary Monsters, and Bowie's longest composition since "Station to Station" four years prior in 1976.
Contents
Music and lyrics
The song's original title was "It Happens Everyday". Producer Tony Visconti said "Instead of singing 'Not another teenage wildlife' [Bowie] would sing 'It happens everyda-a-ay.'"
Against a musical backdrop that owed much to his classic song "Heroes", including textural guitar work from both Robert Fripp and Chuck Hammer, and adds wandering phrases following his lyrical paragraphs, Bowie appeared to take aim squarely at his post-punk artistic godchildren, particularly Gary Numan:
A broken-nosed mogul are you
One of the new wave boys
Same old thing in brand new drag
Comes sweeping into view
As ugly as a teenage millionaire
In a 1980 interview, Bowie commented on Numan and his "whiz-kid world":
What Numan did he did excellently but in repetition, in the same information coming over again and again, once you've heard one piece.... It's that false idea of hi-tech society and all that which is... doesn't exist. I don't think we're anywhere near that sort of society. It's a enormous myth that's been perpetuated unfortunately, I guess, by readings of what I've done in that rock area at least, and in the consumer area television has an awful lot to answer for with its fabrication of the computer-world myth.
Renowned Bowie fan Boy George has said that his all-time favourite lyric was "As ugly as a teenage millionaire".
In a 2013 article in the Mail On Sunday, Bowie said that his vocal performance on the song was an imitation of Ronnie Spector.
Cover versions
The song was covered by Northern Irish rock band Ash for their compilation album A-Z Vol.2.
This single was covered by the band Deadsy.