"If [Mott] were doing OK at the time, I don't think they would have wanted to link up with me, because they were quite macho, one of the early laddish bands. But things weren't good, and I wrote that within an hour or so of reading an article in one of the music rags that their break-up was imminent. I thought they were a fair little band, and I almost thought, This will be an interesting thing to do, let's see if I can write this song and keep them together. It sounds terribly immodest now but you go through that when you're young: 'How can I do everything? By Friday!' So I wrote this thing and thought, There, that should sort them out. Maybe I got my then management to phone up their people: 'David Bowie's written you this song.' And it worked! I was flabbergasted. And then I wrote them Drive In Saturday, but by that time I think they thought, 'Oh, we don't need that wimpy glam-rocker any more. I think they would have done it great."

David Bowie, MOJO #104 (July 2003), pp.78, 79