Ziggy Stardust
by David Bowie
- 80
- BPM
- G major
- Key
- 9B
- Camelot
- 44
- Danceability
- 5
- Acousticness
Mick Ronson played the riff at the heart of "Ziggy Stardust", and David Bowie recorded the song around it on November 11, 1971 at Trident Studios in London. Bowie had written it within days of "Lady Stardust" earlier that year, and it was registered with his publisher as early as April 1971. He cut an acoustic demo that spring. It was released on a 1990 reissue of the album.
For the album version Bowie worked with the Spiders from Mars, Ronson, Trevor Bolder and Mick Woodmansey, and Ken Scott co-produced. Ronson took the main riff on electric guitar, while Bowie played an acoustic twelve-string mixed beneath it. A second electric riff inspired by the Byrds sat almost buried in the mix. It ended with a reprise of the line "Ziggy played guitar" before the record cut straight into "Suffragette City".
The title character, a rock star who brought messages from extraterrestrial beings, drew on the singer Vince Taylor, the Legendary Stardust Cowboy and Kansai Yamamoto, who designed the tour costumes. Bowie said "Ziggy" came from a tailor's shop called Ziggy's that he passed on a train. The album came out on June 16, 1972 on RCA. Bauhaus covered the song in 1982 and reached number 15 in the UK.
Ziggy Stardust runs at 80 BPM, the tempo of boom-bap hip-hop, reggae and slow R&B. In classical terms it sits in andante territory. A bar of 4/4 lasts 3 seconds, and a quarter-note delay is 750 ms. It is in G major, Camelot 9B, which shares its notes with E minor and mixes cleanly with C major and D major.
We use multiple sources as part of our online research for the song story including Wikipedia.