"He's been a friend of mine since 1972. That goes without saying. He's one of my best friends, if not my best friend, but as a collaborator, I think I've really made him aware of the quality of his voice, which I believe he really wasn't aware of until he really started singing on Blah-Blah-Blah...Maybe I was able to let him realise that he didn't have to be quite so histrionic in what he was doing, physically or with sound, and still have the same kind of weight as a performer, as an artist, that he was, in fact, a brilliant lyricist. Fabulous lyrics, and he really should face the fact that he's a born poet, and musically, I was able to structure that in a way to make his lyrics really work for him...I think it was so unfair that he was receiving so little attention, when there are so many bands out there that owe him so much, from the Pistols onwards."

David Bowie, 1987

"He sees me with a distance I don't see for myself. He sees me as a character. Probably as an American beatnik who survived...Probably Kerouac thirty years later. And I think I see him as one of the only representatives of the enfranchised world that can understand me, or that I can stand. He's a realist from a very sophisticated urban setting who, when I met him in 1970, he already had his plan for media domination, or whatever, whereas I'm sort of an inspired idealist from the midwest, who has made every mistake in the book. I just sort of follow my nose...I'm happy if I can create a good song."

Iggy Pop, 1987

Were he and Bowie ever lovers, as is often assumed?

“Well, I’ve never had any sort of macho revulsion of fags, but Bowie and I – never, never, never, never. Everybody would think that, but I never saw him be that way anyway. I’ll tell you this. That guy got more p-u-s-s-y. I couldn’t believe it. Talk about a bitch magnet. Damn! Actresses, heiresses, waitresses, skateresses. And me? I was just left holding my dick most of the time. I had this short haircut, and I looked like a duck. But I got lucky sometimes. I got a good song out of a girl I was knocking off at the time, and it became ‘China Girl.’ “


Hedegaard, E. (Dec. 11, 2003). Iggy Pop's trail of destruction. Rolling Stone, issue 937, p. 80.

"David Bowie turned me on to [Kraftwerk’s Radio-Activity] when I was hanging out with him on his Station to Station tour, trying to get him to produce The Idiot. I heard this and thought, 'Aha--the world has changed.'"

Iggy Pop, Spin Magazine, November 2003

"Bowie played [The Ramones] for me in a car, on our way to defend ourselves against a bogus drug rap. He always had whatever was new. I remember thinking 'Blitzkrieg Bop' sounded vaguely dangerous."

Iggy Pop, Spin Magazine, November 2003

That car ride was immediatedely following the famous Nassau County Coliseum show in 1976 and they arrived in Rochester, NY at around 4AM the next morning.

“[The Jean Genie was] focused around Iggy, an Iggy-type character to be fully fair. It wasn’t actually Iggy…”

David Bowie (1996), cited in The Complete David Bowie (2004 edition), p.110

“Bowie and I really just brought out the best in each other. ‘Nightclubbing’ was my comment on what it was like hanging out with him every night.”

Iggy Pop, cited in The Complete David Bowie (2004 edition), p.153

“When David plays guitar he gets nuts…You know that little part on ‘Dum Dum Boys’, that ‘Boweeewaaaah’? That’s his part, that’s David doing that. He struggles with that thing when he plays!”

Iggy Pop, cited in The Complete David Bowie (2004 edition), p.68

“I only had a few notes on the piano, I couldn’t quite finish the tune…Bowie said, ‘Don’t you think we could make a song with that? Why don’t you tell the story of the Stooges? He gave me the concept of the song and he also gave me the title…Then he added that guitar arpeggio that metal groups love today. He played it, and then he asked Phil Palmer to play the tune again because he didn’t find his playing technically proficient enough.”

Iggy Pop, cited in The Complete David Bowie (2004 edition), p.68