David Bowie's Favorite (and Least Favorite) David Bowie Songs

David Bowie was a legendary musician and performer whose work transcends genre and, according to some fans, time and space. Over the course of his lifetime, he released 26 studio albums and underwent countless transformations, inhabiting personas from Ziggy Stardust to Jareth the Goblin King in Labyrinth.

Occasionally, the Starman came down to Earth long enough to open up about which of his many songs he treasured most—and which he wished he’d never released. Read on to discover more about David Bowie’s favorite and least favorite tunes from his own discography.

David Bowie’s Favorite David Bowie Songs

Fortunately, we don’t have to speculate about which of his own songs Bowie loved the most, because the artist was generous enough to go ahead and list them. 

He shared his picks in a free CD compilation released to readers of the British newspaper The Mail on Sunday in 2008. Entitled iSELECT: BOWIE, the anthology spans many different Bowie albums and eras. The list doesn’t include many of Bowie’s biggest hits, such as “Changes” and “Heroes,” but it does include a diverse selection.

Topping the list is “Life On Mars?” from Hunky Dory, a layered ballad that seems to express frustrations with all the problems of Earth while looking to the stars for escape.

The track was actually born of a personal frustration. In 1968, Bowie wrote English lyrics for a French song called “Comme d’Habitude,” but his version was never released. However, the songwriter Paul Anka heard Bowie’s take on the tune, wrote new lyrics, and wound up giving the song to none other than Frank Sinatra. That song became “My Way,” which of course became a huge hit. Afterwards, a peeved Bowie wrote “Life On Mars?” and incorporated what he referred to as “clutches of melody that were definite parodies of ‘My Way.’”

He was then able to use whatever bitterness he felt to paint a picture of what he called a “sensitive young girl's reaction to the media.” Bowie added, “I think she finds herself disappointed with reality…that although she’s living in the doldrums of reality, she’s being told that there’s a far greater life somewhere, and she’s bitterly disappointed that she doesn’t have access to it.” He also later described the tune simply as a “love song.” 

Bowie also cited the eight-and-a-half-minute tune "Sweet Thing/Candidate/Sweet Thing" from Diamond Dogs and the enigmatic "Bewlay Brothers" from Hunky Dory as some of his favorites. See the whole list of Bowie’s most loved Bowie songs below.

1. “Life On Mars?” (from the album Hunky Dory)

2. “Sweet Thing/Candidate/Sweet Thing” (from the album Diamond Dogs)

3. “The Bewlay Brothers” (from the album Hunky Dory)

4. “Lady Grinning Soul” (from the album Aladdin Sane)

5. “Win” (from the album Young Americans)

6. “Some Are” (previously unreleased track from Low sessions)

7. “Teenage Wildlife” (from the album Scary Monsters)

8. “Repetition” (from the album Lodger)

9. “Fantastic Voyage” (from the album Lodger)

10. “Loving The Alien” (from the album Tonight)

11. “Time Will Crawl (MM Remix)” (new remix by Bowie)

12. “Hang On To Yourself (Live)” (from the album Live Santa Monica ’72)

David Bowie’s Least Favorite David Bowie Songs

Bowie wasn’t quite as crystal-clear about his least favorites of his own songs, but he did express pointed dislike for a few of his own compositions. One such selection was “Too Dizzy,” a song he recorded for the 1987 album Never Let Me Down. 

“It’s a throwaway! I always thought it was better for Huey Lewis! I was unsettled with that song, but it’s on the album anyway,” Bowie said in an interview given the year the song was released. He later scrubbed the track from all future releases of the album. 

In general, Bowie viewed the entirety of Never Let Me Down with distaste, saying that “it was such an awful album…I really shouldn’t have even bothered going in the studio to record it” in a 1995 interview.

The album’s production—which took inspiration from 1950s musicals—received pushback from critics (and clearly Bowie himself), but in its wake, Bowie moved on to more experimental and innovative material that would add scope to his career.

Bowie also expressed dislike for the song “The Laughing Gnome,” an early release that became a cult favorite when it came out in 1967.  “God, that Anthony Newley stuff, how cringey,” Bowie said of the song in a 1990 interview. “No, I haven’t much to say about that in its favor. Lyrically I guess it was really striving to be something, the short story teller. Musically it’s quite bizarre. I don’t know where I was at.”

Interestingly, Bowie also wasn’t always a huge fan of one of his greatest hits—“Space Oddity.” The song was his first number one hit in the UK, but he disliked how it made him associated with the space race, calling it “a farce song” written as an “antidote to space fever.”

Reportedly also frustrated with the song's massive popularity, which sometimes threatened to eclipse his other works, Bowie even largely retired it from his tour setlists after 1990. He did eventually seem to develop an appreciation for the tune, and even chose it as the closing track at his 1997 50th birthday concert at Madison Square Garden. Ultimately, he admitted that it was indeed a “very good song.”

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