All the Young Dudes (song)

Infobox Single |
Name = All the Young Dudes


Artist = Mott the Hoople
from Album = All the Young Dudes
B-side = "One of the Boys"
Released = July 1972
Format = 7" single
Recorded = May 1972
Genre = Glam rock
Length = 3:32
Label = Columbia Records
Writer = David Bowie
Producer = David Bowie
Certification =
Last single = "Downtown"
(1971)
This single = "All the Young Dudes"
(1972)
Next single = "One of the Boys"
(1972)
Misc =

"All the Young Dudes" is a song written by David Bowie, originally recorded and released as a single by Mott the Hoople in 1972. "NME" editors Roy Carr and Charles Shaar Murray have described the track as "one of that rare breed: rock songs which hymn the solidarity of the disaffected without distress or sentimentality".Roy Carr & Charles Shaar Murray (1981). "Bowie: An Illustrated Record": p.117] In 2004, "Rolling Stone" rated "All the Young Dudes" #253 in its list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. It is also one of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.

Music and lyrics

Regarded as one of glam rock's anthems, ["Rolling Stone" [http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/6596098/all_the_young_dudes 500 Songs] ] the song originated after Bowie came into contact with Mott the Hoople's bassist Pete "Overend" Watts and learned that the band was ready to split due to continued lack of commercial success. When Mott rejected his first offer of a composition, "Suffragette City" (from "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars"), Bowie wrote "All the Young Dudes" in short order specially for them, allegedly on the floor of a London flat in front of the band's lead singer, Ian Hunter.David Buckley (1999). "Strange Fascination - David Bowie: The Definitive Story": pp.153-154]

With its dirge-like music, youth suicide references and calls to an imaginary audience, the song bore similarities to Bowie's own "Rock 'n' Roll Suicide", the final track from "Ziggy Stardust". Cited as being to glam rock what "All You Need Is Love" was to the hippie era, the lyrics name-checked contemporary star T. Rex and contained dismissive references to The Beatles and The Rolling Stones ("My brother's back at home with his Beatles and his Stones/We never got it off on that revolution stuff") in a "joyous trashing of the 1960s". [Nicholas Pegg (2000). "The Complete David Bowie": p.23]

Bowie himself once claimed that the song was not intended to be an anthem for glam, instead it carried a darker message of apocalypse. According to an interview Bowie gave to "Rolling Stone" magazine in 1973, the boys are carrying the same news that the news guy was carrying in the song "Five Years" from "Ziggy Stardust", a message that the Earth only had five years left to live: "'All the Young Dudes' is a song about this news. It's no hymn to the youth, as people thought. It is completely the opposite." [ [http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4158/is_20030530/ai_n12689648 Story of the Song All the Young Dudes] ]

Release and aftermath

Mott the Hoople's single was released in July 1972 and made #3 in the UK charts. In November that year, Bowie introduced the band on stage at the Tower near Philadelphia and performed the song with Hunter (released on "All the Way from Stockholm to Philadelphia" in 1998 and the expanded version of "All The Young Dudes" in 2006). Bowie took to performing "All the Young Dudes" on his own 1973 tour, and a medley version appears on the album "Ziggy Stardust - The Motion Picture", the live recording of the last Ziggy show that was finally released officially in 1983.

David Bowie's own mono studio version from 1972 went unreleased until 1994 when it appeared on the semi-legal album "RarestOneBowie". It was subsequently remastered and included on "The Best of David Bowie 1969/1974", the 30th Anniversary edition of "Aladdin Sane", and the 2-disc US version of "Best of Bowie"). The composer's first released version was in 1974 on the "David Live" double LP. Bowie also used the music in reverse as the basis for "Move On", a track on his 1979 album, "Lodger". In 1992, twenty years after their duet in Philadelphia, Bowie and Hunter again performed the song together with the surviving members of Queen, Mick Ronson, and Def Leppard's Joe Elliott and Phil Collen at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert.

"All the Young Dudes" was featured in the 1995 film "Clueless", the 2007 Jason Reitman film "Juno" and the 2008 film "The Wackness". A cover version of the song is featured in the 2008 video game "".

Track listing

# "All the Young Dudes" (David Bowie) – 3:32
# "One of the Boys" (Mick Ralphs, Ian Hunter) – 6:46

Personnel

* Verden Allen – organ, backing vocals
* David Bowie – saxophone
* Dale "Buffin" Griffin – drums
* Ian Hunter – guitar, piano, keyboards, vocals
* Mick Ralphs – guitar, backing vocals
* Mick Ronson – strings, brass
* Pete "Overend" Watts – bass

Cover versions

"All the Young Dudes" has been covered by several artists including Bruce Dickinson on his album, "Tattooed Millionaire" and also released it as a single, Angel, Billy Bragg, Mick Ronson, Travis, Ozzy Osbourne, Slayer, The Church, Bruce Dickinson, Rolf Harris, Cybernauts, Tesla, The F-Ups, World Party, Tool, Gene Loves Jezebel, Massive Attack, The Smashing Pumpkins (live, with Bowie), Alejandro Escovedo, Switchblade Kittens, Judas Priest (live), The New Standards, Jimmy Barnes, Ian Hunter solo, Enrico Ruggeri, Two Cow Garage,John Frusciante & Wavegroup for the video game . There is a Japanese version of the song sung by Hironobu Kageyama. The Clash, whose members included fans of Mott the Hoople, paid homage to the song with their track "All the Young Punks (New Boots and Contracts)" from "Give 'Em Enough Rope". Marvelous 3 also featured an interpolation of "All the Young Dudes" in the song "Cigarette Lighter Love Song".

Notes