Cyberspace Oddity: Behind New Bowie

Thousands of would-be poets, hack reporters and wannabe rock stars will likely rummage through crumpled notebooks of amateur prose next month, seeking out that perfect verse for David Bowie's current single-in-progress.

After swapping lyrics over the years with rock & roll stalwarts like Mick Jagger, Lou Reed and Iggy Pop, the illustrious Ziggy Stardust is now courting a new, unsuspecting collaborator. To commemorate the launch of his personal Internet Service Provider, www.davidbowie.com, Bowie will pen the first verse and chorus of a never-before-heard song, then post the words and upload the music on his site to help inspire the masses to complete his musings.

Beginning next month, anyone with a computer mouse and modicum of imagination can contribute three additional verses to the yet-unnamed song during the five-week contest. Internet users will vote on the contributions each week, and Bowie will ultimately choose the winner from a pool of twenty to twenty-five finalists, according to Ron Roy, a spokesman for UltraStar Internet Services.

After selecting his partner in rhyme, Bowie will fly the winner to New York, where the Thin White Duke will rehearse, record, mix and encode his or her new song live on the Web. Bowie will then post the song immediately onto davidbowie.com, where subscribers can access it free of charge. So much for sharing a chunk of actual royalties.

• 
  MUSIC 100 Greatest Debut Albums
• 
  MOVIES 'Star Trek' Is Crazy Good
• 
  TV 10 Shows to Watch This Summer
• 
  POLITICS No Price Big Banks Can't Fix

Song Stories

“I'm Yours”

Jason Mraz | 2008

Jason Mraz re-emerged after his disappointing second album with this lead single, a Jack Johnson-esque ditty about giving yourself fully to someone else. The success of the reggae-tinged song (it earned two Grammy nods and a spot on the Billboard singles chart for well over a year) was something the folk-pop singer never predicted when he wrote it in 15 minutes at home. "I played a happy-hippie chord progression that would probably work without 50 different Bob Marley songs," he told Rolling Stone. "I thought, 'It's too novelty. This is a nursery rhyme,'" concluding that "you can never guess what's gonna be a hit."

More Song Stories entries »

Twitter