10 Best David Bowie Songs

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David Bowie spent more than five decades changing direction whenever listeners thought they had him figured out. He moved through glam rock, soul, electronic music, hard rock, pop, jazz, and experimental work without losing the voice that tied it all together. Any list of ten Bowie songs is going to leave out classics, but these selections show how wide his catalog really was. From Hunky Dory and Ziggy Stardust to Blackstar, Bowie kept finding new ways to sound like himself.

# 10 – Lazarus – Blackstar

David Bowie released “Lazarus” digitally on December 18, 2015, less than a month before Blackstar arrived on his sixty-ninth birthday. The song was also part of the stage production Lazarus, which Bowie created with Enda Walsh. Tony Visconti produced the recording, with Donny McCaslin, Ben Monder, Tim Lefebvre, and Mark Guiliana helping give it the dark jazz-rock sound heard throughout the album. Johan Renck directed the unsettling official video, released on January 7, 2016. Bowie’s death three days later changed the way the song was heard almost overnight. “Lazarus” now sounds inseparable from the final chapter of a career in which Bowie kept making ambitious music right to the end.

# 9 – China Girl – Let’s Dance

David Bowie and Iggy Pop wrote “China Girl,” and Pop first recorded it for his 1977 album The Idiot. Bowie returned to the song for 1983’s Let’s Dance, the album he produced with Nile Rodgers. The new version turned the uneasy original into a polished pop-rock single without removing the darker ideas in the lyric. Stevie Ray Vaughan’s guitar is one of the details that keeps the record from becoming too slick. David Mallet directed the famous video with Geeling Ng, and Bowie described the film as a direct statement against racism. The single became one of the biggest hits of Bowie’s 1980s commercial peak.

Read More: Top 10 Stevie Ray Vaughan Songs

# 8 – Thursday’s Child – ‘hours…’

“Thursday’s Child” opened David Bowie’s 1999 album ‘hours…’ and served as its lead single. Bowie wrote the song with longtime guitarist Reeves Gabrels, and the two men also produced the album together. After the harder electronic and industrial edges of some of Bowie’s 1990s work, this track moves at a much quieter pace. The lyric looks back over a difficult life while allowing the possibility that something better may still arrive late. Holly Palmer’s backing vocals give the chorus an extra softness without pulling attention away from Bowie. It is one of the stronger late-period Bowie songs that casual listeners sometimes overlook.

# 7 – Fame – Young Americans

“Fame” closed David Bowie’s 1975 album Young Americans and became his first number-one single in the United States. Bowie wrote the song with Carlos Alomar and John Lennon during sessions at Electric Lady Studios in New York. Bowie and Harry Maslin produced the recording, with Alomar’s guitar riff providing the foundation and Lennon adding guitar and backing vocals. The lyric takes a cold look at celebrity, money, and the people who appear once success arrives. Its clipped funk groove sounded very different from the glam rock that had made Bowie famous only a few years earlier. “Fame” proved that one of Bowie’s greatest strengths was knowing exactly when to leave an old sound behind.

# 6 – Wild Is The Wind – Station To Station

David Bowie closed his 1976 album Station to Station with “Wild Is the Wind,” written by Dimitri Tiomkin and Ned Washington for the 1957 film of the same name. Johnny Mathis recorded the song for the film, while Nina Simone later made a version that Bowie greatly admired. Bowie and Harry Maslin produced his recording during the same sessions that yielded “Golden Years” and the album’s massive title track. Carlos Alomar, Earl Slick, George Murray, and Dennis Davis keep the accompaniment restrained enough for Bowie’s vocal to carry the song. RCA released it as a single in 1981 in connection with the Changestwobowie compilation, accompanied by the stark black-and-white David Mallet video. It remains one of the finest examples of Bowie taking somebody else’s song and making it sound completely at home in his own catalog.

# 5 – Life on Mars? – Hunky Dory

“Life on Mars?” appeared on David Bowie’s 1971 album Hunky Dory, produced by Bowie and Ken Scott. Bowie wrote the song at the piano, and Rick Wakeman’s playing became one of the most recognizable parts of the finished recording. Mick Ronson supplied both guitar and the dramatic string arrangement. Bowie described the song as a young girl’s reaction to the media, while its musical history also grew out of his earlier encounter with the French song that eventually became “My Way.” RCA finally released “Life on Mars?” as a UK single in 1973, and it reached number three. The combination of Bowie’s vocal, Wakeman’s piano, Ronson’s arrangement, and those strange cinematic images still makes the record sound enormous.

# 4 – Space Oddity – David Bowie

David Bowie released “Space Oddity” as a single on July 11, 1969, only days before the Apollo 11 mission. Gus Dudgeon produced the recording, which introduced Major Tom and gave Bowie his first major hit. Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey helped inspire the song, but the finished lyric is less about triumph than isolation. “Space Oddity” reached number five in the United Kingdom in 1969, later reached number fifteen in the United States, and finally went to number one in Britain when reissued in 1975. Mellotron, Stylophone, acoustic guitar, and orchestral touches give the record a sound unlike almost anything else Bowie had made to that point. Major Tom would stay with Bowie for years, but the original song remains the one that first opened the door.

# 3 – Changes

“Changes” opens David Bowie’s 1971 album Hunky Dory and became his first single for RCA in January 1972. Bowie and Ken Scott produced the recording, with Rick Wakeman’s piano helping give the song its bright, slightly theatrical character. The lyric moves between Bowie’s own uncertainty and a larger argument about generations refusing to understand one another. It was not a major hit when first released, which seems almost impossible considering how closely the song later became identified with Bowie. Its title also became a perfect shorthand for an artist who refused to remain in one style for very long. Few Bowie songs explain his public image better without actually being written as a career statement.

# 2 – Suffragette City – The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars

“Suffragette City” comes from David Bowie’s 1972 album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Bowie wrote the song and recorded it with Mick Ronson, Trevor Bolder, and Mick Woodmansey, with Bowie and Ken Scott producing. Before recording it himself, Bowie offered the song to Mott the Hoople, who turned it down and later accepted “All the Young Dudes” instead. The track is built for volume, with Ronson’s guitar and piano pushing Bowie through one of the fastest songs on the album. The word “droogie” nods to A Clockwork Orange, while the famous closing phrase gives the record one last burst of rock-and-roll attitude. “Suffragette City” is Ziggy-era Bowie at his least subtle and most fun.

# 1 – “Heroes”

David Bowie and Brian Eno wrote “Heroes,” the title song from Bowie’s 1977 Berlin album, and Bowie produced the recording with Tony Visconti. Robert Fripp’s sustained guitar parts give the track its strange, soaring sound while Eno’s synthesizer work adds another layer underneath. Visconti used microphones at different distances from Bowie so that more of the room opened up as the vocal became louder, helping create the enormous final verses. The image of two lovers by the Berlin Wall was inspired by Visconti and singer Antonia Maaß, whom Bowie saw together near Hansa Studios. The single reached only number twenty-four in the United Kingdom when first released, but its reputation grew dramatically over the years. “Heroes” turns one temporary moment of love and defiance into something big enough to close this list.