On 26 March 1972, Mott The Hoople disbanded after a demoralising show in Switzerland. The band had been formed in 1966, and had already been slogging it out for a while with limited success. Their early albums sold poorly, got negative reviews, and they never seemed to be able to move forward. The show in Switzerland was the straw that broke the camel’s back. It was poorly attended, the few who were there were unenthusiastic, and the band had lost their motivation to continue.
Worn out and depressed, the band’s lead singer Ian Hunter returned to his hotel room, sat down, and started composing the song Ballad of Mott the Hoople (March 26th 1972, Zürich) about the experience.
In a different hotel room, bass player Overend Watts placed a phone call to David Bowie and asked if he needed a bass player. Bowie was shocked to hear what had happened and answered that he would rather save the band. He persuaded them to stay together, and met up with them when they returned to London.
Bowie realised that the band needed a hit. He initially offered them the song Suffragette City from his then yet-to-be-released Ziggy Stardust album. They turned it down. Bowie then wrote All the Young Dudes in short order especially for them. Allegedly this happened while sitting cross-legged on the floor of a room in London’s Regent Street, in front of Ian Hunter.
The song was instantly well liked by everybody. The band’s drummer Dale Griffin is quoted in Rolling Stone magazines Top 500 Songs: “I’m thinking, ‘He wants to give us that?’ He must be crazy!”
With an agreeable song in place, Bowie made sure the band got a new recording contract, and promptly inserted himself as the producer for the next single and album.
There was a challenge when it came to getting Mott in the studio to record the song, as they had alienated their record label, Island. Bowie got them some time at Olympic Studios in London in the middle of the night, and they went there quietly to record. In addition to producing the track, Bowie played guitar, sang backup, and clapped.
After the first recording session for this song, Bowie thought it was lagging at the end. Ian Hunter responded with the idea for the one-way conversation, which begins with him saying, “Hey, you down there, you with the glasses!”
Said Hunter: “I remembered an encounter I’d had with a heckler during a recent gig at the Rainbow [in London]. He was annoying me, and I ended up pouring beer all over him.”
All the Young Dudes was released as a single on 28 July 1972 and made #3 in the UK Singles Chart, #37 in the US (in November), and #31 in Canada. It also appeared on their album of the same name in September of that year.
Described as being to glam rock what All You Need Is Love was to the hippie era, the lyrics name-checked contemporary stars T. Rex and contained references to The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. Bowie has however claimed that the song was not intended to be an anthem for glam – in fact it actually carried a darker message of apocalypse.
In an interview Bowie gave to Rolling Stone magazine in 1973, he reveals how the boys in the song are carrying the same news that the newscaster was carrying in the song “Five Years” from Ziggy Stardust; the news being the fact that the Earth had only five years left to live. Bowie was firm that All the Young Dudes is a song about this news. Not a hymn to the youth, as people thought, but in fact completely the opposite.
Some of the lyrics had to be changed in the original Mott the Hoople release so it could be played on UK radio and TV. The line in the second verse “Wendy’s stealing clothes from Marks and Sparks” was a reference to UK retailer Marks & Spencer, also well known as the alter ego used in the song. Playing the original lyric would have breached broadcasting regulations relating to advertising, so the line was replaced with “Wendy’s stealing clothes from unlocked cars”. Today, both versions are freely aired.
In November 1972, Bowie introduced the band on stage at the Tower near Philadelphia and performed the song with Hunter. It capped off an amazing half year for the band. The breakthrough they had wanted for so long had finally happened, the show in Switzerland wasn’t the final one after all, and the band continued – at least for another year or so!
Almost ironically, the band’s new-found popularity ultimately contributed to the band’s eventual break-up in the late 1970s, after a number of line-up changes and further slumps in popularity. The golden era was over in 1974 with Ian Hunter going solo and guitarist Mick Ralphs leaving to form Bad Company with Paul Rodgers. It seems that Mott simply wasn’t destined to be a band for the long haul, but with All the Young Dudes they at least left behind a classic performance that still shines today.
Bowie recorded his own version of the track in December 1972 during the sessions for Aladdin Sane. It wasn’t used, and went unreleased until 1995 when it appeared on the album RarestOneBowie. It was subsequently included on several other collections and deluxe editions.
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