That time David Bowie met the Beat Generation

In his column, veteran journalist A Craig Copetas revisits past interviews and examines their continued relevance. In this one, he asks what Burroughs, Ginsberg and Kerouac, the three oracles and contradictory architects of the Beat Generation, could teach us in an age of social media and cancel culture.

David Bowie beamed at the elderly American with a trilby on his head. “May I take your hat,” Bowie asked, his thin shoulders drooping shyly into a half bow. The year was 1973 and Bowie had recently materialised as a multinational force majeure, with songs and performances that today, five years after his death, continue to stimulate multigenerational audiences and top Google’s algorithmic hit parade.