David Bowie became the latest Boomer rock icon to cash in his life’s work, though in his case it was his estate that sold publishing rights to his catalog for an estimated $250 million.
What’s now one of the more valuable songs in that catalog didn’t start out that way. Bowie never released the title track to his 1970 LP as a single, though it did make the B-side of “Space Oddity” when it was re-released in 1973 after his Ziggy Stardust breakthrough.
In 1974 Bowie approached Lulu, of “To Sir With Love” fame, about covering the song. He and co-composer Mick Ronson produced a sort of rock-cabaret version for her — Bowie made her smoke cigarettes between takes to harshen her voice — that made it to No. 3 on the UK singles chart.
The person most responsible for the song’s belated high regard was Kurt Cobain, whose emotional reading for Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged appearance in 1993 remains a staple of classic-rock radio nearly 30 years later.
