Bowie Rarities Featured in BBC Doc

Bowie fans will get a treat in an upcoming episode of BBC4’s The People’s History of Pop. Several rarities are set to be featured in the documentary. One of them includes a version of “My Way”, a song made famous by Frank Sinatra, although Sinatra immediately rejected Bowie’s lyrics in favour of Paul Anka’s.

NME states that in addition to Bowie’s 1968 version of “My Way”, the documentary will also feature a demo of “Space Oddity” and a version of 1967’s “The Laughing Gnome”. This will likely be the first time that people hear this particular “Space Oddity” demo and the version featured in the show includes swearing in the sped-up vocals.

The BBC4 documentary has four episodes spanning from 1956 to 1996 that feature the recollections of music fans. The first episode aired in April and covered the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. The second episode, featuring Bowie, will air in July and also includes Pink Floyd, Bob Marley, Marc Bolan, and Northern Soul.

A statement about this episode mentioned:

“The show meets music fans, including some who fell in love with the psychedelic sounds of Sgt Pepper, hippies who discovered peace and love at the Isle of Wight Festival, and Black Sabbath fans who turned to the new sounds of heavy metal.

“The producers have previously appealed to music fans around the UK to upload details about their most precious music memorabilia to the series website at www.bbc.co.uk/mygeneration. Currently over 3,400 items – including photos, videos and audio of their musical treasures – have been uploaded”.

A BBC spokesperson also commented: “The programme is still being made, but we can confirm that there will be some rare and special Bowie material in it”.

Bowie has a massive amount of unreleased material. An album including some of it was included in the 2015 box-set Five Years, covering music from 1969 to 1973. It is rumoured that a second volume of box-sets will be released this fall.