For Gerald Brady.
Yeah, you know the hit version (No. 10 US, No. 2 UK) that Nile Rodgers produced for David Bowie, but it was first recorded six years earlier by Bowie’s co-writer, Iggy Pop, for his debut solo LP, 1977’s “The Idiot,” which Bowie produced. According to a Bowie biography, the song was inspired by Iggy’s infatuation with a Vietnamese woman who was dating someone else. Naturally, Iggy’s version has none of the polish of Bowie’s, which gives more bite to its warning about ruin by Western culture.
He played it faster and fiercer in concert.
Here’s Bowie’s take. Like the rest of his “Let’s Dance” LP, it features a then-unknown Stevie Ray Vaughn on guitar, but the “Chinese” guitar riff was Nile Rodgers’ invention. He later said, “”David was either going to hate this so much he would fire me, or he was going to get the comedic value of writing this silly little poppy thing.” Rodgers, unaware of the song’s genesis, thought it referred to heroin, “China white” being slang for heroin. Given that Bowie and Pop were both trying to kick addictions when they wrote and recorded it, who’s to say he’s wrong?
The video caused a bit of a stir back in 1983, but it certainly underscores the complaints of Asian women about their sexual objectification.
