Lust For Life (album) - Style and Themes

Style and Themes

Lust for Life is generally considered to be more of an Iggy Pop record than the Bowie-dominated The Idiot, being less experimental musically and having more of a rock and roll flavor. However some of its themes were similarly dark, as in "The Passenger", cited by NME editors Roy Carr and Charles Shaar Murray as one of Pop’s "most haunting" tracks, and "Tonight" and "Turn Blue", both of which dealt with heroin abuse. In contrast were more upbeat songs such as "Success" and "Lust for Life", the latter described by Rolling Stone as Pop's "survivor message to the masses".

According to Iggy Pop, Bowie's celebrated riff on "Lust for Life" was inspired by the morse code opening to the American Forces Network News in Berlin. At various points in the song the melody is doubled by the entire band; in Carlos Alomar's words, "You can’t play a counter-rhythm to that, you just had to follow". Joy Division and New Order drummer Stephen Morris declared, "On Lust For Life the drums sound not huge but massive! The loudest cymbals known to man, that riff! I wanted to sound like that, still do."

"The Passenger" was inspired by a Jim Morrison poem that saw "modern life as a journey by car". The lyrics have also been interpreted as "Iggy's knowing commentary on Bowie's cultural vampirism". The music, a "laid-back ... springy groove", was composed by guitarist Ricky Gardiner. It was released as the B-side of the album's only single, "Success". Characterized by Allmusic as "a glorious throwaway" and by Rolling Stone as "an infectious throwaway", "Success" was a light-hearted track of the call and response variety.

"Turn Blue", at just under seven minutes the longest song on the album, was a sprawling confessional that dated back to an abortive recording session by Bowie and Pop in May 1975, when the latter was in the depths of his drug addiction. Originally titled "Moving On", it was composed by Bowie, Pop, Walter Lacey and Warren Peace. It was the only set of lyrics that did not appear on the original vinyl record sleeve. The album's remaining tracks included "Sixteen", the only piece written entirely by Iggy Pop, "Some Weird Sin", a hard rock number featuring a "lost-boy lyric", the "neo-punk" "Neighborhood Threat", and "Fall in Love with Me", which grew from an impromptu jam by the band to which Pop composed lyrics apparently evoking his then-flame, Esther Friedmann.