The Prettiest Star

This is in my top four favorite David Bowie songs. I know it's not politically driven and controversial and it does not has a crazy sound that Bowie is known and loved for, but thats exactly why I love it. It is beautiful and pure. Uplifting and heartbreaking at the same time. I love David Bowie.

I don't actually agree about it being a proposal - he sounds a lot as if he's talking in retrospect; "When I LOVED the prettiest star". "Staying back in your memory are the movies in the past"

Gorgeous guitar solo - lifts you on the wind & soars away

I'm sure you'll agree that this song is beautiful and of a time pure and simple, a lost time that unless you were there you couldn't begin to understand how special it was, I'm there still in my mind, still dreaming of it, special times gone now, todd

The bolan version is less complicated than the album version, both very good. Such a great song andof a great time.todd

Try not to smile when listening to this. Such a gorgeously, simple love song.

It's a great song when reflecting upon someone you knew or have lost. Great guitar solo at the end of the song for sure.

I too always loved the end of this song (as well as just the whole song generally)...there's just something about the way it fades out the last thirty/forty seconds, such an easygoing trailing off just before the manic, over-the-top cover to "Let's Spend The Night Together"...the last 30-45 seconds or so of "Prettiest" are like being taken by the hand and strolled/escorted ever so lightly to the edge of a precipice which leads to a sharp, abrupt, very vertical drop to the next track on the album (again, the nutty cover to Jagger/Richards).

Bowie claimed this was the song he sang to Angie over the phone as a proposal. For the album, his old friend Marc Bolan of TRex was asked to do the guitar solo on the song, The Prettiest Star-- which he did. Marc's wife, June Child, did not like Bowie and did not want Marc to do it-- she said he was too good for it. Marc was famous first before Bowie. He was the FIRST glam rocker and the UK's no. 1 pop star for 3 years. Bowie and Bolan knew each other before either were famous, and had the same producer Tony Visconti. They had an ornery and healthy rivalry. Bowie was the guest on Marc's final TV show before Marc died. I have always had the suspicion that Bowie wrote this song about Marc Bolan. Marc was camp, a prettyman, but straight. Bowie's bisexuality was and is well known. Angie didn't like Marc either and talked Bowie into dropping his guitar solo from the album,, and replaced him. If you look hard enough, you can find the version with Marc playing. Neither of their wives liked the other guy-- perhaps jealous of their relationship and Bowie's brief attraction to Marc. If Bowie were alive, and I had the chance to ask him, I would!

Inspired by his first wife Angie. Bowie often called her 'Star'.