“It’s Very Easy, All This”: David Bowie Recalls the Three-Step Songwriting Formula John Lennon Gave Him

In an industry as competitive and cutthroat as music, having a good friend and mentor is a priceless resource, and one could certainly include the friendship between David Bowie and John Lennon as such. The musicians met in the mid-1970s, years after the final ripples of Beatlemania had died down. But back when the Fab Four were still en vogue, Bowie always related to Lennon the most.

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Once they finally met, he realized just how much he could relate to and learn from the late musician.

The Musicians Shared Similar Attitudes and Senses of Humor

When David Bowie was releasing his first eponymous debut records, the Beatles were riding high at the height of their fame, releasing monumental albums like Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and Abbey Road. Like so many other music lovers around the world, Bowie found the Beatles to be tremendously influential. And, again, just like everyone else, he had a favorite: John Lennon, the rough-around-the-edges, artsy Beatle. Bowie wouldn’t achieve the level of fame necessary to cross paths with Lennon until after the Beatles split. But when he finally did, he found a kindred spirit.

In a later interview, Bowie recalled asking Lennon what he thought about his style of music, glam rock. Imitating Lennon’s nasal Liverpudlian accent, Bowie said, “‘Yeah, it’s great. But it’s just rock and roll with lipstick on.’ I was impressed as I was at virtually everything he said. He was probably one of the brightest, quickest-witted, earnestly socialist men I’d ever met in my life. Socialist in true definition, not in a fabricated political sense. But a real humanist.”

Bowie added that Lennon had a “really spiteful” sense of humor, “which, of course, being English, I adored. I just thought we’d be buddies forever and we’d get on better and better and all that.”

David Bowie Shares Songwriting Advice From John Lennon

David Bowie didn’t just find a good pal to cut up with when he met John Lennon. He met a musician who served as equal parts collaborator and mentor. Bowie had almost the entire Beatles catalogue and career to analyze while he was on the come-up himself. Even after the Fab Four broke up, Lennon was a wellspring of useful wisdom for Bowie. During a 1983 interview, Bowie revealed the morsel of songwriting advice Lennon gifted him.

“I’ll never forget something John Lennon told me. We were talking about writing, and I would always admire the way he used to cut through so much of the bulls*** and just come straight to the point with what he wanted to say. He said, ‘It’s very easy, all this. All you have to do is say what you mean, make it rhyme, put a backbeat to it. I keep coming back to that principle.”

“John had an incredible charisma,” Bowie continued, “that made you cut through things. I can see the effect that he must have had on McCartney. I’d imagine McCartney sorely misses that now.” At the time of Bowie’s interview, Lennon had been dead for three years after a gunman shot him down in front of his New York City apartment in December 1980.

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