“Changes” by David Bowie

"Changes" came from David Bowie's Hunky Dory in 1971, and when RCA put it out as a single on 7 January 1972 it flopped, which is a fine irony for a song about never standing still. Bowie wrote it after a promotional trip to America early in 1971 and cut it that July at Trident Studios in London, co-producing with Ken Scott. Rick Wakeman plays piano, and the band is the crew soon to be known as the Spiders from Mars: Mick Ronson on guitar, Trevor Bolder on bass and Mick Woodmansey on drums, with Bowie adding sax.

After years of trying on styles without landing a hit, Bowie turned the struggle into the subject. The first verse is about the itch to keep reinventing yourself and keep your distance from the rock mainstream; the second tells parents to let their teenage kids be who they are. Wakeman's piano riff struts and stumbles in the best way, and Bowie's vocal slides from a croon to a cry.

It only caught on after Ziggy Stardust came out, and it later rode along as the B-side of the 1975 "Space Oddity" reissue that became his first UK number one. His biographers have read it as a manifesto for his whole career, and no song came later: it was the final one he ever sang live, before his death in 2016.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.