Art & Creativity Quote by David Bowie

Bowie’s use of “selfish” is less confession than provocation: a sly reframing of the artist’s most taboo truth. Pop culture insists musicians be public servants - authentic, relatable, grateful, endlessly attentive to “the fans.” Bowie flips that script and calls the engine what it is: appetite. He writes and records what interests him because interest is his only reliable compass, the one thing that can’t be faked night after night. The subtext is almost managerial: if you chase your own curiosity hard enough, you’ll outrun both trend and nostalgia.

The word “approach” does a lot of work. He’s not describing inspiration as lightning; he’s describing a method. Bowie treated persona like a laboratory tool - Ziggy, the Thin White Duke, the ever-shifting silhouettes - not as branding for its own sake, but as a way to stay in motion. “Stage shows in much the same way” collapses the supposed divide between “real” music and “fake” performance. For Bowie, performance isn’t an add-on; it’s another medium for the same investigation.

Context matters: Bowie’s career is basically a long argument with stasis. He watched rock calcify into heritage, watched audiences demand the greatest hits version of a person, and kept changing anyway. Calling that “selfish” is a defensive joke and a dare. If the audience wants honesty, he suggests, they should start by accepting that art isn’t made by pleasing them. It’s made by someone refusing to be bored.