5 Songs That Prove David Bowie Was The King Of High School Hits

David Bowie has given us funky soul tunes that drew hormonal teens to the dance floor as well as rebellious rock songs that got '70s boomers mad at their parents. Those accomplishments are enough for us to crown him as the king of high school hits, but his adolescent appeal goes deeper than a few transgressive tunes. In the 1970s, Bowie tapped effortlessly into the teen zeitgeist. From 1971 to 1975, a timespan only slightly longer than high school, he spoke to young people navigating the passage from childhood to adulthood. He expressed solidarity with kids yearning to be taken seriously in "Changes." In "Young Americans," he grasped the exhilaration and uncertainty high schoolers felt about encroaching adulthood. He understood that defiance was an integral part of becoming yourself in "Rebel Rebel."

Bowie's simpatico connection with high school kids came naturally. In the early '70s, he was often described as a chameleon. Indeed, during the period that he produced these high school hits, he went from sensitive singer-songwriter to alien rock star, to plastic soul man, to icy Thin White Duke. Bowie tried on roles to see what helped form his personality — just like high school kids do. As his 1971 hit "Changes" suggested, he was aware of what adolescents were going through, because he was experiencing a similar evolution himself.

We first heard David Bowie's "Changes" during freshman year in high school, arguably the best time and place to discover his paean to the young, overlooked, and underestimated. Although Bowie claimed to the BBC (via his official website) that "Changes" began as "a parody of a nightclub song," the anthem's titular subject seems tailor-made for a high school hit. After all, the bodies, identities, and social circles of the song's audience are all undergoing seismic "Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes."

"So the days float through my eyes / But still, the days seem the same," Bowie laments, suggesting that high school can be purgatory for bright and curious kids. For younger folk who often aren't treated seriously by condescending adults, Bowie's lyrics seem to be in their corner, addressing the older generation via piano- and saxophone-forward adult contemporary pop — a musical language teachers and parents can understand.

"Changes," a classic rock song from 1971 that we'll be blasting on repeat 'til the day we die, dropped when Bowie was 24 years old. He sounds here like high schoolers' older, sympathetic sibling, addressing adults as he advocates for kids getting spat upon as they try to change their world. Awash with Rick Wakeman's plaintive, percussive piano and tagged by Bowie's smooth, sensual saxophone, the tune encapsulates youthful self-dramatization with its romantic allusions to time spent running wild on dead-end streets. More importantly, Bowie reassures kids that change is on the way: Soon they will be older and more in charge of their affairs.

Set to David Bowie's jauntily strummed acoustic guitar, Mick Ronson's air-raid-siren swoops on electric guitar, and Woody Woodmansey's walloping drums, "John, I'm Only Dancing" is a captivating call to hit the floor and bust a move. Ever since it shot to No. 12 on the British charts in 1972, the non-album single has been seen as a queer anthem and a rebellious manifesto for non-heteronormative teens. Although there's little in the tune's enigmatic lyrics about a couple dancing to support that interpretation, Bowie's camp performance, where he joyously yelps, "Touch me," is suggestive.

On top of that, seven months before the song dropped, Bowie told Melody Maker he was gay. Although Bowie's story about his sexuality changed often — in 1976 and 1979 he was bisexual, but by 1983 he told Rolling Stone he was heterosexual — it didn't matter. "When David Bowie came out as bisexual in the early 70s, he provided not only some brilliant music, but also that missing role model," British punk rocker and LGBTQ+ activist Tom Robinson told Varsity.

"John, I'm Only Dancing" also offers relationship lessons for hetero kids. The dancing narrator tells John to give him some space — a resonant message for anyone ever trapped in a too-controlling attachment with a high school sweetheart. A brisk glam rock tune on the surface, "John, I'm Only Dancing" covers a lot of ground when it comes to young romance and should be played at every teen's prom.

Propelled by a crunchy, ringing riff, David Bowie belts out "Rebel Rebel's" mission statement: "You've got your mother in a whirl / She's not sure if you're a boy or a girl." So many high school attitudes are encapsulated by this swaggering 1974 U.K. No. 5 single, which cracked the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 as a remixed version the same year. The song's mother, a befuddled authority figure, rings true for rebellious long-haired boys, tomboy girls, and gender-bending kids of all stripes. Meanwhile, the "juvenile success" protagonist focuses on high schoolers' three favorite extracurricular activities: partying, making love, and testing parental boundaries.

The song's subversive vibe is put over by its irresistible lick, a result of Bowie's high school-worthy rivalry with Mick Jagger. Like two teen boys, the rock stars engaged in fierce competition. Time reported that Jagger even joked about Bowie ripping off ideas, saying he wouldn't wear a new pair of shoes around his "friendly" rival. Working without his longtime collaborator-guitarist Mick Ronson, Bowie wrote the raw hook, which was finessed by guitarist Alan Parker. "[Bowie] said, 'I've got this riff and it's a bit Rolling Stonesy — I just want to piss Mick off a bit,'" Parker told Uncut. 

"Rebel Rebel" is the last in Bowie's string of guitar-driven glam rock gems, a blistering run that includes "The Jean Genie" and "Suffragette City." The song embodies high school-era acting out, along with a young person's desire to experiment and discover who they are and might become.

Released in 1975, "Young Americans" pulled Bowie and his young fans out of an increasingly confining glam rock cul-de-sac into a bigger, brighter world of futuristic Philly soul. A fractured, impressionistic road trip, the swinging, sprawling No. 28 Billboard Hot 100 hit flashes past bits of American detritus and ephemera — a big picture window, a Cadillac, "Soul Train," Barbie dolls, and a breadwinner begging on the bathroom floor. As the production team the Matrix told Blender, the song depicts America as a teenager "brimming with energy and imagination, occasionally overstepping the mark, but always with a great sense of possibility."

Several Bowie tunes sound cooler today, but "Young Americans" seems particularly prescient. The song celebrates the country's vitality while acknowledging its underlying emptiness, where it's hard to find art that touches the soul — a "song that will make [you] break down and cry." The tune's kaleidoscopic narratives are set to gospel choruses, a breakdown dominated by Carlos Alomar's flanged funk guitar and David Sanborn's saxophone, which careens and trills like a car with no one at the wheel.

"Young Americans" is a high school hit for kids entering senior year, fast-approaching the cusp of alluring yet bewildering adulthood. The future is invigorating, overwhelming, and undercut by a sense of imposter syndrome. "'Gee, my life's a funny thing / Am I still too young?'" Bowie asks, questioning himself, his high school listeners, and a young country about to celebrate its bicentennial. "Young Americans" is about all three.

David Bowie's 10th album "Station to Station" runs the gamut from the expressionist dystopian vision of its krautrock-influenced title track to the absurdist dance diversion "TVC 15," which Bowie claimed was about his girlfriend being swallowed by a TV. Swaying to a shuffling samba rhythm and buoyed by doo-wop backing vocals, the 1975 single "Golden Years" lands between these two extremes as a reassuring daydream of adulthood and success. "Don't let me hear you say life's / Taking you nowhere," he assures teens about to join the real world. There's a rosy post-graduation future ahead, where life really begins.

Young, beautiful people can expect to be whisked through their old neighborhoods in sleek limousines, Bowie croons, and be envied by former neighbors. However, this bright, bountiful future is stalked by "shadows," perhaps a metaphor for Bowie's cocaine-induced paranoia. He subsequently claimed he was too high to recall recording the "Station to Station" album. "I can't even remember the studio," he said in "The Complete David Bowie." "I know it was in L.A. because I've read it was."

"Golden Years," which shot to No. 10 in the U.S. charts, is Bowie's farewell to his stint as a high school hitmaker. In 1976, Bowie relocated from Los Angeles to West Berlin. While many of his subsequent songs would still captivate high schoolers, his stories were told by an artist no longer trying on masks or testing out identities. "Golden Years" is the valedictory address from the outgoing king of high school hits.