Dinah!

CBS TV programme, US, 45min

3 January 1976

Five Years

At the end of the show David sings Five Years straight into the camera, tight closeup on his face. That same song the same face that was in closeup about five years ago when he was on "Old Grey Whistle Test".

("Angela wanted to be here," whispers the publicist, "but she's home cooking for a dinner party they're having later with Alice Cooper and Ray Bradbury.")

Dinah: "How do you feel when you hear those screams?"

Dave: "It's my drummer, actually..."

COMMERCIAL BREAK Switch to Bowie on the cone sipping tea with Dinah, Nancy and Fonzie.

"David, you're a puzzle to many people," says Dinah "There are a lot of David Bowies - but is there really only one David Bowie?"

"Well, I started as a painter," Bowie replies, "but I was a natural ham. Rock and roll is superb way of releasing that. I still act the songs rather than sing them. If the French can get away with it, I figure so can I.

"It's the policy of the self-invented man," he continues. "You strip down all the things you don't like about yourself. One thing I didn't like was being very shy. If I gave myself an alarming reputation, then I'd be faced with defending it."

Dinah: "You know, David, we all often do interviews and put people on, but I read where you said — and now I've met your lovely wife Angela - you said 'I've never been in love, thank God'..."

David: "I have a vast capacity to love, but the one time I found myself falling in love it was obsessive in a way. The thing about putting a person on a pedestal, it's like what people search for in God. "

"You've said," Dinah continues, "that if you were an original thinker, you would not be in rock and roll."

"Oh yes," smiles David.

"But rock and roll has been very good to you," she says.

"I've been good for rock and roll," he says.