David Bowie Discovers The Irrelevance Of Identity

Thursday, 28 November 2019 14:39

I went to see the Velvet Underground when I first got to the States back in '70. At the end of the show I went back, we sat down and we talked for about half an hour. Then I told my friend a few days later that I got the chance to speak with Lou [Reed] and you know it was wonderful and we talked about the songs... and he said ‘No. No. Lou left the band last year.' He said ‘You were talking to Doug Yule, the replacement, who's almost his spitting image and sings just like him.' I said 'You're kidding me! But he sat there and talked as though he was Lou, and he was talking about how he wrote Waiting For The Man and all these things…’ and it was at that point that I realised that at the time it didn't matter to me if this was the real one or a fake one.

- David Bowie interviewed on the BBC, 2000