David Bowie's iPod: Chinese Folk, Rufus Wainwright, Steve Reich

Ever wondered what's on David Bowie's iPod? Of course you have. And now thanks to The Guardian, we have a sampling of the Thin White Duke's recent most-played tracks: Chinese folk music, old school crooners and Godspeed! You Black Emperor.

Bowie's tastes run to the wordly and obscure: China's folk singer Peng Liyuan ("I have a thing about Chinese folk music, OK?," says Bowie), Britain-via-Jamaica dub poet Linton Kwesi Johnson and Mali's Amadou & Mariam share megabyte space with Scritti Politti, Rufus Wainwright and cult dance innovator Arthur Russell. Bowie's iPod also features selections by modern day composers like Steve Reich ("Different Trains I: America-Before the War"), John Adams ("Nixon in China: Act I, Scene 1; 'Soldiers of Heaven Hold the Sky") and Gavin Bryars ("Jesus' Blood Never Failed Me Yet").

Bowie's two-disc A Reality Tour — a remastered 33-song set recorded in Dublin during his 2003-2004 world tour — is out tomorrow. The collection includes three tracks that were previously unavailable on live DVD A Reality Tour: "China Girl," "Breaking Glass" and "Fall Dog Bombs The Moon."

Related Stories:
• Q&A: Bowie's Heroes
• David Bowie to "Dance" as "LEGO Rock Band" Avatar
• David Bowie to Reissue "Space Oddity" For 40th Anniversary

• 
  MUSIC Exclusive Live Chat With Linkin Park and Incubus
• 
  MOVIES & TV Peter Travers: 'The Avengers' Has it All
• 
  POLITICS Matt Taibbi: Jon Corzine Is the Original Zimmerman
• 
  VIDEOS Exclusive Premiere: Tenacious D's 'Tinnitus'

Song Stories

“Piano Man”

Billy Joel | 1973

Billy Joel’s first hit, “Piano Man,” was – ironically – an autobiographical lament about how his first album wasn’t a hit. When Cold Spring Harbor didn’t take off, Joel briefly became a lounge pianist in Los Angeles, and this song, about that experience, expressed his frustrations and fears at the time: “And they sit at the bar and put bread in my jar/And say, ‘Man, what are you doing here?’” “It was all right,” Joel said later, about the gig. “I got free drinks and union scale, which was the first steady money I’d made in a long time.”

More Song Stories entries »

Twitter