Mancow: ‘Diamond Dogs’ – David Bowie & Linda McCartney

I was listening to “Diamond Dogs” recently and came across this pic that David Bowie took for the album cover photo shoot circa 1974… 

And I was pretty blown away by how much it resembles Linda McCartney‘s androgynous stage persona of the same era which appears to be blatantly intentional.

Bowie’s “Diamond Dogs” was well recieved. He was a critical darling but was not embraced in the states till the big success of the companion tour for the album.

Blind to most everyone else, Bowie Had grown tired of Ziggy Stardust at this point, but was unaware how to move forward creatively into a paranoid future. A lot like Paul McCartney and his vision for his new band Wings. 

“Diamond Dogs” opens on a joyless future metropolis called, “Hunger City”, where the only creatures doing well are rats. Love, such as it is, is stolen in doorways and there are judgmental eyes everywhere…. America in the 1970’s?

This metaphor resembles the 1975 tour “Wings Over America.” 

Paul McCartney fervently wanted to believe – and have his critics believe – that Wings were a real rock band. Everything, even down to his lovely manicured Linda, had to be extremely calculated and thought out.

It was the first chance that millions of Beatles fans were able to hear McCartney in concert properly, and at the time, fellow Beatle John Lennon had seemingly burned out a major chunk of his talent. George Harrison was losing his popular edge and had done a disastrous 1974 American tour. And no one was really expecting great things from Ringo Starr.

Beyond the actual merits of the Wings’ work – and they never were considered a gifted band – this was McCartney’s chance to linger in the afterglow of the Beatles and play on some of the same stages and in the main attraction arena’s as the Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Elton John and Bowie in the era.