NEWS LESSONS / David Bowie obituary / Intermediate
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David Bowie obituary
Level 2
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Intermediate
Key words
2
Quick quiz
1
Do the quiz. Then, scan the article to check your answers.
1. David Bowie was ...
a. … a British singer, songwriter and actor.
b. … a British painter and actor.
c. … an American musician and artist.
2. What do these people have in common?
• Ziggy Stardust
• the Thin White Duke
3. Put the following David Bowie albums in order of
their release (one per decade).
• Blackstar
• David Bowie
• Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)
• Young Americans
• Black Tie White Noise
Match the key words with the definitions below. Then, find them in the article to read them in context. The
paragraph numbers are given to help you.
1. someone who is the first to do something or to discover something _________________________ (para 2)
2. the feeling that you want very much to become successful, rich and famous _________________________
(para 4)
3. start to do something alone rather than with others _________________________ (para 4)
4. a time when you begin to be successful at something _________________________ (para 5)
5. thinking and worrying about something a lot _________________________ (para 6)
6. natural ability to do some things well _________________________ (para 6)
7. a musical record with only one song or piece of music on each side _________________________ (para 8)
8. a list showing the music that people have bought the most copies of in the previous week
_________________________ (para 10)
9. a role or character adopted by a performer _________________________ (para 11)
10. a great success _________________________ (para 12)
11. the period of time when a person, idea or object is most successful or popular _________________________
(para 15)
12. the activity of trying to persuade people or organizations to give money for a specific purpose, especially for a
charity _________________________ (para 16)
13. something you do to show respect for someone _________________________ (para 17)
14. an event organized to make money for people or a charity _________________________ (para 20)
ambition
benefit
breakthrough
broody
chart
fundraising
gifts
go solo
heyday
persona
single
trailblazer
tribute
triumph
NEWS LESSONS / David Bowie obituary / Intermediate
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David Bowie obituary
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Intermediate
David Bowie obituary
Adam Sweeting
11 January, 2016
1 Until the end, David Bowie, who has died of
cancer, was still full of surprises. His latest album,
Blackstar, appeared on his 69th birthday on 8
January 2016 and proved that he hadn’t lost his
gift for making dramatic statements as well as
challenging, disturbing music.
2 Throughout the 1970s, Bowie was a trailblazer
of musical trends and pop fashion. He became
a singer-songwriter, a pioneer of glam-rock, then
got into what he called “plastic soul”, before
moving to Berlin to create innovative electronic
music. His ability to mix brilliant changes of sound
and image is unique in pop history.
3 Bowie was born David Robert Jones in south
London. In 1953, the family moved to Kent,
where David showed talent for singing and
playing the recorder. Later, he studied art, music
and design.
4 At 15, David formed his first band, the Kon-rads.
It was clear that David’s talents and ambition
meant that he should go solo. David took the
name Bowie to avoid confusion with Davy Jones
of the Monkees.
5 Bowie’s first album, released in June 1967, was
titled simply David Bowie. In July 1969, Bowie
released Space Oddity, the song that would give
him his first commercial breakthrough. Timed to
coincide with the Apollo 11 moon landing, it was a
top five UK hit.
6 In March 1970, Bowie married art student, Angela
Barnett. The Man Who Sold the World was
released in the US in late 1970 and in the UK the
following year. With its daring songwriting and
broody, hard-rock sound, it was the first album to
really show his writing and performing gifts. The
album’s themes included immortality, insanity,
murder and mysticism, which showed that Bowie
was a songwriter who was thinking outside of
pop’s usual boundaries.
7 He followed it with 1972’s Hunky Dory, a mix of
wordy, elaborate songwriting. It was an excellent
collection that met with only moderate success
but that all changed with The Rise and Fall of
Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars later
that year.
8 This time, Bowie appeared as a science-fiction
character – an intergalactic glam-rock star visiting
planet Earth. The hit single Starman brought
instant success for the album.
9 Everything Bowie touched turned to gold. He had
his first UK number 1 album with Aladdin Sane
(1973), which included the hit singles The Jean
Genie and Drive-in Saturday. But Bowie was
already planning his next career moves.
10 His increasing interest in funk and soul music
could be heard on the album Young Americans
(1975), which gave him a US chart-topper with
Fame (with John Lennon as a guest vocalist).
11 With the album Station to Station (1976), Bowie
introduced a new persona, the Thin White Duke.
This persona was the same as his role as a sad
space traveller in Nicolas Roeg’s film The Man
Who Fell to Earth.
12 Bowie’s relationship with his wife had been
suffering under the pressures of success and
the couple divorced in 1980. This was a year of
further creative triumph, bringing a fine album,
Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps), and its
chart-topping single, Ashes to Ashes, followed by
a period playing the title role in The Elephant Man
on the Broadway stage.
13 He achieved a number 1 single with his 1981
partnership with Queen, Under Pressure, and
became increasingly involved with different
media. He appeared in the German movie
Christiane F (1981) and wrote music for the
soundtrack. He had another chart hit with Cat
People (Putting Out Fire) from Paul Schrader’s
movie Cat People (1982).
14 1983 was the year in which he put his energy into
the album Let’s Dance and follow-up concerts.
Let’s Dance turned Bowie into a crowd-friendly
global rock star, with the album and its singles
Let’s Dance, China Girl and Modern Love all
becoming huge international hits.
15 This was the heyday of MTV and Bowie’s talent
for eye-catching videos increased his popularity,
while the six-month Serious Moonlight tour
drew massive crowds. It was to be the most
commercially successful period of his career.
16 At the 1985 Live Aid famine relief concert at
Wembley Stadium, Bowie was one of the best
performers. In addition, that year, he teamed up
with Mick Jagger to record the fundraising single
Dancing in the Street, which quickly went to
number 1.
17 A few days after his appearance at the Freddie
Mercury tribute concert at Wembley Stadium in
NEWS LESSONS / David Bowie obituary / Intermediate
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Biographical information
3
Answer the questions about David Bowie’s life with information from the article.
1. Where was David Bowie born and in what year?
2. What was Bowie’s birth name?
3. Why did he change his name?
4. What did he study at college?
5. What was the name of his first band?
6. What style of music is he most connected with?
7. How many times was he married?
8. How many children did he have?
April 1992, Bowie married the Somalian model
Iman and the couple bought a home in New York.
18 For the album Black Tie White Noise (1993), he
included elements of soul, electronica and hip
hop. It topped the UK album chart and gave him
a top 10 single, Jump They Say.
19 New media and technology influenced his
recordings, too. His 1999 album Hours…
was based around music he had written for a
computer game called Omikron, in which Bowie
and Iman appeared as characters. The birth of
Bowie and Iman’s daughter, Alexandria, followed
in August 2000.
20 As an adopted New Yorker, Bowie was the
opening act at the Concert for New York City in
October 2001, where he joined Paul McCartney,
Jon Bon Jovi, Billy Joel, the Who and Elton John
in a benefit show six weeks after the 9/11 attacks.
21 During his Reality tour in 2004, Bowie had chest
pains while performing in Germany and needed
emergency surgery in Hamburg.
22 He saw the medical emergency as a warning and
started to slow down. In February 2006, he was
given a Grammy lifetime achievement award. He
was entered into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
in 1996.
23 The Next Day (2013) was his first album of new
material in a decade. It included the single Where
Are We Now?, which gave him his first UK top 10
hit since 1993. The album went to the top of the
charts in Britain and around the world. In 2014,
Bowie was given the Brit Award for Best British
Male, making him the oldest person to get
the award.
24 He is survived by Iman, their daughter,
Alexandria, his stepdaughter, Zulekha, and his
son, Duncan, from his first marriage.
25 • David Bowie (David Robert Jones), singer,
songwriter and actor, born 8 January, 1947; died
10 January, 2016
© Guardian News and Media 2016
First published in The Guardian, 11/01/16
NEWS LESSONS / David Bowie obituary / Intermediate
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6. famine
7. opening
8. hit
9. medical
10. international
Bowie’s first ______________________ ______________________ (1) came with the song Space Oddity in 1969.
Well known for his different personas and ______________________ ______________________ (2), in 1972,
Bowie presented himself as a ______________________ ______________________ (3) named Ziggy Stardust,
an intergalactic glam-rock star visiting planet Earth.
The song Starman brought ______________________ ______________________ (4) for the album titled The
Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.
He first topped the US charts with Fame, which featured John Lennon as a ______________________
______________________ (5).
The 1980 album Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) included the ______________________
______________________ (6) Ashes to Ashes.
His next album Let’s Dance, with its ______________________ ______________________ (7), turned Bowie into
a crowd-friendly global rock star.
He was one of the most outstanding performers at the Live Aid ______________________
______________________ (8) concert at Wembley Stadium in 1985.
Six weeks after the 9/11 attacks in New York, Bowie was the ______________________
______________________ (9) at a benefit concert for the victims of the attack.
After a ______________________ ______________________ (10) on stage in Germany in 2004, Bowie started to
slow down and reduce his work.
f. hits
g. emergency
h. relief
i. single
j. act
Collocations
4
Match the words in the left-hand column with those in the right-hand column to make expressions from
the text.
1. guest
2. science-fiction
3. instant
4. dramatic
5. commercial
a. statements
b. vocalist
c. breakthrough
d. character
e. success
NEWS LESSONS / David Bowie obituary / Intermediate
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CAN BE DOWNLOADED
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David Bowie obituary
Level 2
l
Intermediate
KEY
1 Quick quiz
1. a
2. They are personas created by David Bowie.
3. David Bowie (1967)
Young Americans (1975)
Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) (1980)
Black Tie White Noise (1993)
Blackstar (2016)
2 Key words
1. trailblazer
2. ambition
3. go solo
4. breakthrough
5. broody
6. gifts
7. single
8. chart
9. persona
10. triumph
11. heyday
12. fundraising
13. tribute
14. benefit
3 Biographical information
1. in South London; in 1947
2. David Robert Jones
3. to avoid confusion with Davy Jones of the pop
group the Monkees
4. art, music and design
5. the Kon-rads
6. glam-rock
7. twice, to Angela Barnett and to Iman
8. two of his own, Duncan and Alexandria, and a
step-daughter, Zulekha
4 Collocations
1. b
2. d
3. e
4. a
5. c
1. commercial breakthrough
2. dramatic statements
3. science-fiction character
4. instant success
5. guest vocalist
6. h
7. j
8. i
9. g
10. f
6. hit single
7. international hits
8. famine relief
9. opening act
10. medical emergency
5 Word fields
Bowie’s songwriting: challenging, disturbing,
innovative, daring, broody, wordy, elaborate
Bowie’s music styles: glam-rock, plastic soul,
electronic, electronica, hard rock, funk, soul, hip hop
