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A very intelligent man.

PLAYBOY: How is your relationship with Elton John these days?

BOWIE: He sent me a very nice telegram the other day.

PLAYBOY: Didn’t you describe him as “the Liberace, the token queen of rock”?

BOWIE: Yes, well, that was before the telegram. I’d much rather listen to him on the radio than talk about him. Let’s do something else. Want to write a song?

PLAYBOY: Sure.

BOWIE: All right. We’ll call the song Audience and it’ll be about rock ‘n’ roll. All right? I’m gonna say, “Led Zeppelin is solid. They make you like a wall.” [Writes it down] Quick. Give me the name of an artist, someone in rock.

PLAYBOY: How about Stevie Wonder?

BOWIE: Good. “Stevie Wonder is growing and you love him most of all.” [Writes it down] He’s sort of the golden boy, everybody loves him. Who else? Name a good songwriter.

PLAYBOY: Joni Mitchell.

BOWIE: “Joni Mitchell has our hearts.” [Writes it down] She does, doesn’t she? OK, let me get my guitar. [Looks at what he’s written and begins strumming and humming softly] All right, here we go. [Sings] “Led Zeppelin is growing, erasing our minds / They make us feel stony, they make us go blind / Hey, Stevie Wonder, there like a wall / So good to lean on, the hardest of all. . . .” Isn’t that a nice little tune?

PLAYBOY: Is that how you wrote Changes?

BOWIE: Naw, but that’s basically how I wrote most of the Diamond Dogs album.

PLAYBOY: What happened to Joni Mitchell?

BOWIE: She’s good enough, she doesn’t need me crooning about her. You see, of course, there are no rules to my writing.

PLAYBOY: We see.

...

PLAYBOY: Last question. Do you believe and stand by everything you’ve said?

BOWIE: Everything but the inflammatory remarks. 

UK 1971:

"I'm the twisted name on Garbo's eyes
Living proof of Churchill's lies, I'm destiny"

and 1977

"What kind of a fool do you think I am?
You think I know nothing of the modern world

...Even at school I felt quite sure
That one day I would be on top
And I'd look down upon the map"

"God save the Queen
She ain't no human being
There is no future
And England's dreaming

...Don't be told what you want
Don't be told what you need

...Oh God save history
God save your mad parade"

I posted a comment elsewhere responding to an academic, anthropological, opinion, repeating what I've said before. You have to see all of this in terms of the breakdown of older class, family and social relations. The comment hasn't appeared and may not make it.

As I said yesterday, this is all repeats. But one of the links in that bunch is this one, which includes a quote taken from a comment on a post by Bertram written a couple of days after Thatcher died.

From a comment by Ajay

Rich and poor existed alike inside a great framework of British institutions. It was the lower-middle-class who went from their schools to keep shops or manage small businesses; who did not participate, for the most part, in the institutions you’re describing; who therefore saw the state not as the guarantor of the framework in which they lived, but as a constant demander of taxes and producer of paperwork; and whose resentment ultimately produced Margaret Thatcher.

It's all right there.

Bowie now has his own tag