Coldplay once pitched a collaboration with David Bowie, who rejected the Chris Martin-fronted band at the height of their fame.
The Life on Mars hitmaker was blunt with his feedback when Coldplay offered him a chance to join them in the studio. “It’s not a very good song, is it?” Bowie said of the track. The veteran rocker snubbed the band, quite clearly, because the material he was offered wasn’t up to scratch. The band would confirm Bowie had turned down the offer because he was unimpressed with the material. Will Champion, the band’s drummer, said: “He called me and said, ‘It’s not one of your best.'” Coldplay were seemingly unoffended by Bowie’s snub, though, with Martin reflecting that the man behind The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars had a right to be selective with his projects.
Coldplay drummer Champion added: “He was very discerning – he wouldn’t just put his name to anything. I’ll give him credit for that!” The drummer also said the band were huge fans of the band and that his music was “one of the points of reference for absolutely everything”.
Guitarist Jonny Buckland agreed, adding: “We’ve all loved his music for as long as we’ve known about music.” Bowie was no stranger to hits himself, and writing those all-time classics seemed to be a real treat for the veteran performer.
While Hunky Dory would not sell well on release, it would soon become one of the greatest albums Bowie ever made, and is frequently featured in the conversation for his all-time best album. His run of brilliant works throughout the 1970s seemingly started here, and it’s a “beautiful day” which can be credited with giving us the song Life on Mars. Its abstract style is allegedly a riff on Frank Sinatra’s My Way, though Bowie would suggest the “middle-class ecstasy” of Life on Mars has a trip to Lewisham to thank.
He said: “This song was so easy. Being young was easy. A really beautiful day in the park, sitting on the steps of the bandstand. ‘Sailors bap-bap-bap-bap-baaa-bap.’ An anomic (not a ‘gnomic’) heroine. Middle-class ecstasy.
“I took a walk to Beckenham High Street to catch a bus to Lewisham to buy shoes and shirts but couldn’t get the riff out of my head. Jumped off two stops into the ride and more or less loped back to the house up on Southend Road.
“Workspace was a big empty room with a chaise lounge; a bargain-price art nouveau screen (‘William Morris,’ so I told anyone who asked); a huge overflowing freestanding ashtray and a grand piano. Little else.”
Bowie, too, would have artists turn him down for collaborations. He missed out on a chance to work with Norman Rockwell for Young Americans‘ album art, saying he couldn’t wait the six months required from the artist.
