David Bowie had started to prepare and record a musical based on George Orwell’s novel ‘1984’, but the Orwell estate refused to permission to use the copyright. 

        Salvaging what he could from the project, he was left with material that sounded a little dated, with little of the melody we associate with David Bowie’s better work. He had to rework the material and needed another idea to inspire him again.  The cut-ups would prove useful in re-writing some of his lyrics. As work on the renamed ‘Diamond Dogs’ album progressed both lyrics and music improved until David Bowie was able to present his evocation of the future. 

In November 1973 a meeting was arranged by Craig Copetas, who worked for Rolling Stone magazine. They met in London while Burroughs was still living at his Duke Street flat, near Piccadilly Circus. Bowie apparently had read next to nothing of Burroughs’ work but referred to a chapter of ’Nova Express’, called ‘Pay Color‘, a description of the future that describes ’People City’ and ’The Subliminal Kid’. Bowie’s was about to record his ’Diamond Dogs’ L.P. which starts with a description of ’Hunger City’ set in the near future. Since the seventies the Cut-Up technique  has been mentioned and used by a few rock bands. Usually the wild claims that beat generation made are repeated, how they cut into the past to reveal the future and how the work of two minds can  be turned into the  magical  and profound work of a third which the  artist then takes credit for deftly avoiding copyright infringements. In fact the cut-ups are a basic system of random editing that required reediting to  make  sense surreal or not, or to paint an evocative picture in words. There is another difference between my method of cutting up my poetry and William Burroughs literary cut-up method. My interpretation of the method was used only on my own work, it did not occur to me to use the work of other writers. So I did not pass on that aspect of the process to Elaine.                     

. Though Bowie was as experienced as any of his rivals he was not so used to success and was in danger of losing his way in the cocaine culture that went with the job. It is one thing to think you are the second coming as Vince Taylor did during a psychotic episode,
but another to be treated as such as David Bowie was when he toured America. With the adulation and apparent wealth came the drug dealers and Cocaine, but in the seventies Cocaine was not a street audience drug but an elitist substance, that set the user apart from the masses. The average rock fan who worked a forty hour week at a boring job,  could not afford to use cocaine, at £60 to £80 a gram at the time, anymore than the unemployed living on benefit in a commune. How were the record buyers and concert goers going to relate to a  nonsense lyrics inspired by a drug they could not afford. Words that looked magical under the influence, but turned to nursery rhymes when the drug wore off? As cocaine became more popular among the elite their was a noticeable lack of coherence and meaning in rock lyrics. However elaborate and expensive the production people still wanted a tune they could whistle and words that were poetic and comprehensible. At the same time David Bowie was almost obliged to add an intellectual quality to his music. The reviewers in the rock press were becoming celebrities themselves and knew that they had influence over thousands of mainly young impressionable readers. He was well aware that some critics had sensed that he was in danger of distancing himself from his audience and  would be only too happy to pick holes in his street education and Tin Pan Alley apprenticeship. There were ex-grammar school kids and  public school old boys about. think  he turned to Burroughs to confound these characters. William Burroughs was read and respected by the hippies and many of the journalists were still on the hippy  bandwagon. To criticise Burroughs would risk appearing uncool      

                                     Addiction Notes

             It is one thing to report and repeat the ’shocking facts’ of addiction, another to understand the nature of addiction. A lot is made of the assumption that those who use drugs are subferior to those who do not. I do not believe this to be true. Anyone who starts on drugs is subject to find out the insidious nature of addiction the hard way. 
               In Britain in the immediate pre-war years after the twenties craze for cocaine had subsided, with no pushers or underworld criminal network interested in profiting from the drug trade, addiction was mainly confined to the so-called respectable classes. These addicts fell into two categories. The ‘therapeutic ‘addicts became dependant through the course of their treatment for physical ailments. The professional addicts were those doctors and nurses whose work gave them access to drugs. During the second world war the number of addicts increased as some soldiers became therapeutic addicts because  of the drugs used to treat their wounds, a syndrome known as ’soldier’s disease’. During and after the war barbiturates and amphetamines were freely prescribed because the medical profession did not accept that these ‘Soft’ drugs were addictive. No-one condemns these addicts. They only became addicts because they had access to drugs. In the late fifties and early sixties there was an increase in drug use. There was, as I have described a drug culture involving amphetamine, cannabis, heroin and cocaine, centred around the west end of London. As music was used to augment the drug experience, dealers increasingly gave musicians access to drugs. By the early seventies, for the rock star there was even more likely hood of access as by then the drug dealers were tripping over each other to seek out the musicians who would  be able to afford the most expensive drugs.