The androgynously beautiful David Bowie at all times had an concept to make music for kids. Sure, the identical man who wrote about maintaining lifeless hair for making up underwear aspired to put in writing songs for an viewers of children.
It isn’t as creepy because it appears. Again in 1983, whereas acting on his Critical Moonlight Tour, he was approached by the well-known Muppet creator Jim Henson about showing in a brand new film known as Labyrinth. A number of superstars had already been thought of for the function — Michael Jackson, Mick Jagger, Prince and Sting — however it was finally Bowie that Henson pursued.
“I might at all times needed to be concerned within the music-writing side of a film that might attraction to kids of all ages, in addition to everybody else,” Bowie mentioned to Movieline again then (by way of bowiebible.com), “and I need to say that Jim gave me a totally free hand with it. The script itself was terribly amusing with out being vicious or spiteful or bloody, and it additionally had much more coronary heart than many different particular results films. So I used to be fairly effectively hooked from the start.”
A Collaboration With Trevor Jones
To be clear, Bowie didn’t pen all of the music for the movie through which he starred as Jareth the Goblin King whereas carrying what appeared to be the tightest pants on the earth. A lot of the rating was written by the South African composer Trevor Jones, who additionally labored on films similar to Excalibur (1981), Mississippi Burning (1988) and The Final of the Mohicans (1992), amongst many others.
And Jones had a stunning time collaborating with the Skinny White Duke.
“Jim [Henson] and I went over to Gstaad in Switzerland to work with him on the songs, and he was wonderful to work with and beloved the challenge,” Jones recalled in a 1999 interview. “It was like a fairyland, and I’ve particular recollections of Jim, David Bowie and myself. We used to remain in and drink mulled wine.”
David Bowie’s Songs
To start, Jones wrote the music for the preliminary “Opening Titles Together with Underground,” whereas Bowie wrote the lyrics. From there, Bowie penned “Magic Dance,” “Chilly Down,” “Because the World Falls Down,” “Inside You” and “Underground.” These songs, co-produced by Arif Mardin (who had labored on Bowie’s Tonight album) had been recorded in April and June of 1985 in London, adopted by overdub classes in New York that fall.
Along with some individuals Bowie had labored with earlier than, there have been a handful of notable names that appeared on the soundtrack: Chaka Khan, Cissy Houston, Luther Vandross and Steve Ferrone, future drummer for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers. (In 2024, Khan shared a photograph on social media of herself, Houston, Vandross and Bowie recording mentioned music within the studio.)
Hearken to ‘Magic Dance’
In true Bowie style, he took on many roles.
“‘Dance Magic’ [the title of which was later changed to ‘Magic Dance’] gave me a little bit of an issue,” he mentioned in a TV interview across the time of the movie’s launch. “It is a tune for the Goblin King and the child. Within the recording studio the child I picked – one of many backing singers, Diva [Gray], had this cute little child, and could not put two gurgles collectively! And it would not work for me. I imply it simply would not go; I kicked it, I did the whole lot to make it scream, and it actually buttoned its lip. So I ended up doing the gurgles, I am the child on that observe as effectively.”
A couple of music movies accompanied the soundtrack album, one for “Underground” and one for “Because the World Falls Down.” They had been each directed by Steve Barron, the identical man who directed the movies for Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean,” Dire Straits’ “Cash for Nothing,” Bryan Adams’ “Summer season of ’69” and lots of others.
Watch the Music Video for ‘Because the World Falls Down’
Bowie himself did not care a lot for the movies, nor did he interact in a lot promotion for Labyrinth.
“I’ve discovered that the movies I put into different individuals’s fingers have at all times been a mistake,” he mentioned to Music & Sound Output in 1987. “Due to my lack of curiosity, I did not get that concerned with issues like ‘Underground’ which I did for Labyrinth. I simply left it up, and the result’s simply not my type of video. I used to be a bit lax there. I did not really feel concerned.”
Nonetheless, Henson was grateful. “I feel it is the most effective factor he may have accomplished for the movie,” the puppeteer advised the Solar Sentinel in July 1986, only a few weeks after Labyrinth made its debut in American theaters on June 23.
READ MORE: The Finest Track From Every David Bowie Album
The soundtrack album itself was well-received by critics and followers — it reached No. 68 on the Billboard 200 chart within the U.S. and No. 38 within the U.Okay.
Jones was fairly happy in the long run, recalling the Labyrinth expertise in 1999 as “most likely some of the romantic initiatives I’ve ever labored on.”
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Gallery Credit score: Allison Rapp
