“When I asked him what he thought of what I was doing, glam rock, he said, ‘Yeah, it’s great, but it’s just rock ’n’ roll with lipstick on!’”: How David Bowie and John Lennon bonded to create a funky No.1 hit that slammed celebrity culture

Bowie, Yoko, Lennon.

David Bowie was in the closing stages of recording his Young Americans album when he decided to record a cover of The Beatles’ Across The Universe — primarily as a strategic move to entice John Lennon to come down to the studio.

It was January 1975 at Electric Lady Studios in New York’s Greenwich Village, and Lennon had only just reunited with Yoko Ono after his infamous ‘lost weekend’ period of estrangement.