History of the song "Changes" - David Bowie (1971)
Imbued with a New Year's mood, this kind song is about changes to come! It wasn't destined to break into the upper echelons of the charts, but that's not why it was written....
When Bowie started composing, his wife, Angela Barnett, was pregnant with their firstborn, who would later be named Zoey. Of course, Bowie was looking forward to having a baby.
The album "Hunky Dory" (1971), from which "Changes" was released as a single, is all about exploring more serious themes. Bowie later said that the song was meant to be a parody of those nightclub junk songs. They don't make sense, but they have style and mainstream. David, on the other hand, wanted to move away from that direction, and that's what his "Changes" is about. The musician's desire for the new, for new discoveries and radical changes is clearly felt in the lyrics. In the song, the author also raises the theme of success, that everything is relative. Such a childish and philosophical attitude gave the composition the very colouring for which we love it.
Bowie wrote it without even realising that it could become something more. To his surprise, quite the opposite happened. The song was released in December '71. The success of the song took him by surprise:
She turned into this monster who was constantly demanding at concerts, "De-weed, De-weed, let's do 'Changes'"! I had no idea she would become so popular.
In the seventies, David played it at almost every concert. Despite this, it failed to break even into the top 40 hits in America. It was the last song that David Bowie sang live from the stage before ending his concert career in 2006.
When David died in 2016, she was swept up to #49 in a wave.
Of course Rolling Stone magazine included it in the 500 greatest songs of all time!