Lust for Life

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Written by: David Bowie, Pop
Produced by: Bowie
Released: Sept. '77 on RCA
Charts: Did not chart

With its enormous kaboom and Pop's sneering, free-associative lyrics (the line about "hypnotizing chickens" is a reference to William S. Burroughs' The Ticket That Exploded), "Lust for Life" is half a kiss-off to drugged-out hedonism, half a French kiss to it. Nineteen years after the song first appeared, it was used in the 1996 movie Trainspotting, paving the way for cleaned-up versions to be used in TV ads for cars and cruise lines. And what about the line "Of course I've had it in the ear before"? "That's a common expression in the Midwest," Pop said. "To give it to him right in the ear means to fuck somebody over."

Appears on: Lust for Life (Virgin)

Next: Me and Bobby McGee

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