The following article is the original transcript of a journey on the Trans-Siberian railroad in April 1973. The journalist who wrote this (Robert Muesel) was on the same train trip as David Bowie in May 1973 - who was travelling back to the UK from Japan.
Dick Cavett once asked David Bowie how he came up with his ideas.Expecting Bowie to live up to his star-child status and confess that everything he’d ever written had been plucked from his unconscious, Cavett was surprised to hear Bowie’s reply: “Travel,” the singer said without hesitating. “I’m in a very lucky position of not wanting to fly, so I take a ship or a train or something”. (Excerpt from Faroutmagazine - article by Sam Kemp).
"I won't fly, he said "because I've had a premonition I'll be killed in a plane crash if I do. If nothing happens by 1976 I'll start to fly again. But I love trains and I'd probably take this ride anyway, it's supposed to be the greatest of them all."
Bowie managed to make it work, using the slow pace of terrestrial and marine travel as an opportunity to read, think, and develop songs. In April 1973, Bowie’s phobia, coupled with a desire to see Russia, prompted him to embark on his longest trip to date. After concluding the Japanese leg of his Ziggy Stardust tour, he decided to return to Europe via the Trans-Siberian Express, the last great train journey in the world.
After boarding the Express In Nakhoda, Bowie settled in for six days of blissful travel.
The linear nature of life on the Express clearly enhanced Bowie’s descriptive powers. Indeed, writing in Mirabelle shortly after the trip, his words carry a deeply meditative tone:
“I could never have imagined such expanses of unspoilt, natural country without actually seeing it myself, it was like a glimpse into another age, another world, and it made a very strong impression on me,” Bowie said. “It was strange to be sitting in a train, which is the product of technology — the invention of mankind, and travelling through land so untouched and unspoilt by man and his inventions.”
Journalist Robert Muesel recalls meeting Bowie on the Trans Siberian Express: “He was tall, slender, young, hawkishly handsome with bright red (dyed) hair and dead white skin. He wore platform-soled boots and a shirt glittering with metallic thread under his blue raincoat. He carried a guitar but two Canadian girls did not need this identifying symbol of the pop artist. ‘David Bowie’ they screeched ecstatically, ‘on our train’. Bowie turned their spines to jelly with a smile.” (excerpt from Rail journey Through Siberia - 5years.com)
"The Russians say you can use your cameras as long as you don't include any military objectives, " he said. " We were shooting station scenes at Sverdlovsk when a character in a leather windcheater and dark glasses demanded our film. We refused to give it to him and for a moment I was worried there would be trouble. But the train started to pull out just then and we jumped aboard. "I believe he was a KGB man"
Eventually, Bowie arrived in Moscow. He spent three days in the city, attending the May Day parade, visiting the Kremlin, and generally shocking the locals with his fiery red hair. He then jumped back on the train and headed to Warsaw and East Berlin, where he was nearly sent back to Moscow after being thrown off the train.
