Through the disappointment I was extremely relieved. He’d rather just continue being the actual him. And he (or quite possibly merely a representative) said that he’d just done Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant’s Extras and didn’t want to do another thing acting as a version of him. What fans may not know, however, is that Bowie himself nearly made a cameo appearance on the show "The someone we knew talked to the someone they knew’s friend of someone who represented him and possibly approached him about it. Which to Bret apparently involves wearing an eyepatch and revealing himself to the head of a musical greeting cards company, complete with "lightning bolts down his wanger." Fans will of course know well that the Bowie in Space song was integrated into the season 1 episode 'Bowie', in which the star visits a low self-esteem suffering Bret to reassure him that all skinny rock stars need to do to achieve glory is develop some flair.
We were in some kind of writing fever."įast forward 7 years later, and the production for the Flight of the Conchords TV show. Would people laugh if it wasn’t mean? We didn’t care if they didn’t laugh, we were obsessed. and Bowie!", before returning home to write the song beloved by fans today for its warm reflection on the musical legend, "We had never heard a parody song like this before, that fawned over the artist instead of mocking them. Do you read me Boweeeh!? Did you ever end up going to Mars, Bow-way? Was there life on it?"Ĭlement continues by regaling a hilarious conversation the pair had with a local radio DJ, still in the Bowie characters phoning in to exclaim "It's Bowie. "We started by asking him questions and referencing his lyrics as if we were sending transmissions to our hero through space. You’d just feel the change like a change in your own mood." He’d taken Paul McCartney’s style of making an epic medley song and made it more subtle, parts seamlessly changing without you even realising it. They were catchy, which usually translates to being easy to play. The Conchords' own Jemaine Clement took to Spinoff to pay heartwarming tribute to his hero, talking warmly of the influences which brought about Bowie in Space "In 1999 Bret McKenzie and I were sitting with our guitars in our dingy flat in Wellington trying to learn David Bowie songs. Or perhaps because it's easier to just think Bowie's not left, just returned to his home turf in space. Loving, teasing creatively joyous and "pretty far out, man". Somehow, this giddy tribute sums all of it up. Between favourite songs, between Modern Love, Heroes, or Lazarus Flight of the Conchords' loving parody Bowie in Space cropped up again and again in people's tributes. Seeing friends, family, colleagues posting vastly different remembrances, but each just as treasured as the next. A part of what hit so hard emotionally in Bowie's death was the realisation of exactly how expansive his influence was.