{"id":718,"date":"2026-03-21T20:09:41","date_gmt":"2026-03-21T19:09:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cloudeating.com\/?p=718"},"modified":"2026-03-22T09:51:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T08:51:16","slug":"david-bowie-i-started-going-round-and-round-faster-and-faster-and-then-i-let-go-and-as-i-let-go-i-ran-out-of-petrol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cloudeating.com\/?p=718","title":{"rendered":"DAVID BOWIE: I started going round and round, faster and faster. And then I let go. And as I let go I ran out of petrol."},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I wrote that in Berlin, in the mid to late Seventies. It was about one of the few very stupidly, badly attempted thank God, suicide attempts that I tried. The full story is rather alarming. I\u2019m not sure if I should tell it or not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It involved a coke dealer whose car I saw on the Kurf\u00fcrstendamm in Berlin one day, and I\u2019d got it into my mind that he screwed me over a deal. My very good friends Iggy Pop and Coco Schwab had clubbed together and bought me a really cheap but lovely Mercedes, 1954 I think it was. You know the ones with rabbit skin around the steering wheel? So delightful. It didn\u2019t have a floor! It was all very rusted. We were all very broke in those days. It was a bit like a pedal car, if your feet went through. It was quite dicey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I was driving that and I saw this guy, let\u2019s call him Johan, in the car. And I was so crazed I started ramming him in the Kurf\u00fcrstendamm, in daylight, in, like, 12 o\u2019clock in the day. And I rammed him and I rammed him, and I was ramming him, He looked around and I could see he was mortally terrified for his life. I\u2019m not surprised. I rammed him for a good, it must have been a good five to ten minutes, which is a very long time actually. Nobody stopped me. Nobody did anything. And I got out of it, \u2018What am I doing?\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That night everything came to a kind of a spiritual empasse, you know? And I really was down in a hotel garage, and I started going round and round, just like a movie I\u2019d seen. I thought, \u2018Oh, this is so Kirk Douglas in that film [Two Weeks In Another Town, 1962<\/em>] where he lets go of the steering wheel.\u2019 [laughs] You can tell what kind of condition I was in. Or what condition my condition was in. So I started going round and round, faster and faster. And then I let go. And as I let go I ran out of petrol. I just slowly came to a stop! I thought, \u2018Oh God, this is the story of my life.\u2019 As it happens, things picked up after that!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

David Bowie on BBC Radio Theatre, 27 June 2000 (Source: The Bowie Bible, Always Crashing in the Same Car))<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photo: 1956 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL ‘Alloy’ Gullwing (Source: RMSothebys Auctions)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Questa l\u2019ho scritta a Berlino, tra la met\u00e0 e la fine degli Anni Settanta. Parlava di uno dei miei pochi, molto stupidamente e malamente tentati, grazie a Dio, tentativi di suicidio. L’intera storia \u00e8 piuttosto allarmante. Non so se raccontarla o no.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

C\u2019era di mezzo un trafficante di coca, del quale un giorno vidi l\u2019auto lungo il Kurf\u00fcrstendamm di Berlino, e mi ero messo in mente che mi avesse fregato riguardo un accordo. I miei cari amici Iggy Pop e Coco Schwab erano stati in giro per club, e mi avevano comprato una super economica, bellissima Mercedes, credo fosse del 1954. Avete presente quelle con la pelle di coniglio intorno al volante? Deliziosa. Non aveva pavimento! Tutta arrugginita. Eravamo tutti molto al verde all\u2019epoca. Era un po’ come un\u2019auto a pedali, se i piedi ci fossero passati attraverso. Era piuttosto pericolosa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Insomma la stavo guidando, e ho visto questo tizio, chiamiamolo Johan, in macchina. Ero cos\u00ec fuori di me che ho iniziato a speronarlo nel Kurf\u00fcrstendamm, alla luce del sole, tipo verso mezzogiorno. E l’ho speronato e l’ho speronato, lo stavo speronando, e lui si \u00e8 guardato intorno e ho visto che era terrorizzato a morte e temeva per la sua vita. Non ne sono sorpreso. Ho continuato a speronarlo per un bel po\u2019, devono essere stati cinque o dieci minuti, che \u00e8 davvero un tempo lungo, veramente. Nessuno mi ha fermato. Nessuno ha fatto nulla. E me ne sono uscito, ‘Cosa sto facendo?’<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quella notte tutto arriv\u00f2 a una sorta di stallo spirituale, sapete? Ed ero davvero gi\u00f9 nel garage di un albergo, e ho iniziato a girare in tondo, proprio come in un film che avevo visto. Ho pensato: ‘Oh, fa tanto Kirk Douglas in quel film [Due settimane in un\u2019altra citt\u00e0, 1962]<\/em> dove lui lascia andare il volante.’ [ride] Potete capire in che razza di condizioni fossi. O in che condizioni fosse la mia condizione. Cos\u00ec ho iniziato a girare in tondo, sempre pi\u00f9 velocemente. E poi ho lasciato andare. E mentre lasciavo andare, sono rimasto senza benzina. Semplicemente mi sono fermato piano piano! Ho pensato: ‘Oh Dio, questa \u00e8 la storia della mia vita.’ A dire il vero, le cose poi sono migliorate!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I wrote that in Berlin, in the mid to late Seventies. It was about one of the few very stupidly, badly attempted thank God, suicide attempts that I tried. The full story is rather alarming. I\u2019m not sure if I should tell it or not. It involved a coke dealer whose car I saw on … Continua a leggere DAVID BOWIE: I started going round and round, faster and faster. And then I let go. And as I let go I ran out of petrol.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[147,3,4],"tags":[161,162,150,164,154,46,163,155],"class_list":["post-718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interview","category-literature","category-poetry","tag-always-crashing-in-the-same-car","tag-berlin","tag-david-bowie","tag-garage","tag-glam-rock","tag-memories","tag-mercedes","tag-rock"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cloudeating.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cloudeating.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cloudeating.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cloudeating.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cloudeating.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=718"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.cloudeating.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":731,"href":"https:\/\/www.cloudeating.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/718\/revisions\/731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cloudeating.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cloudeating.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cloudeating.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}