All the Young Dudes
by Mott the Hoople
- 77
- BPM
- A major
- Key
- 11B
- Camelot
- 43
- Danceability
- 21
- Acousticness
Mott the Hoople recorded "All the Young Dudes" at Olympic Studios in London on May 14, 1972, with David Bowie producing and Keith Harwood engineering. Handclaps came from Nicky Graham and a security guard named Stuey George. Singer Ian Hunter said the session was a high because they knew they were singing a hit.
The band had been about to split. After four albums and no commercial success, a tour had left them short of money. Bowie sent them a demo of "Suffragette City" in February 1972, and they turned it down. When bassist Pete Watts told him the band had broken up, Bowie rang back two hours later saying he had written a song for them. He played it on acoustic guitar in an office on Regent Street, sitting cross-legged on the floor. Hunter felt chills, and drummer Dale Griffin couldn't believe Bowie wanted to give it away. The band agreed to stay together.
CBS released the single in the UK on July 28, 1972. It reached number 3 in the UK and number 37 on the Billboard Hot 100. The second verse had to change for radio, with the Marks and Sparks line replaced by one about unlocked cars. Hunter ad-libbed on the long fadeout, calling out to someone in the audience.
All the Young Dudes runs at 77 BPM, the tempo of soul, trip-hop and half-time hip-hop. In classical terms it sits in andante territory. A bar of 4/4 lasts 3.12 seconds, and a quarter-note delay is 779 ms. It is in A major, Camelot 11B, which shares its notes with F# minor and mixes cleanly with D major and E major.
We use multiple sources as part of our online research for the song story including Wikipedia.