The Jean Genie - 2013 Remaster

This song has two likely influences: Iggy Pop and Cyrinda Foxe. Many of the lyrics reflect Iggy Pop's lifestyle and stage antics (he often slithered around on stage and cut himself). Cyrinda Foxe was an actress who starred in commercials for Jean Genie jeans. Legend has it that Bowie wrote this in Foxe's apartment in an effort to entertain her. Foxe would go on to appear in the song's official video alongside Bowie. Cyrinda Foxe was Aerosmith lead singer Steven Tyler's first wife - they married not long after she broke up with David Johansen of The New York Dolls. They had a daughter together, but got a bitter divorce. In 1996, she wrote a tell-all book about Tyler called Dream On, alleging that he didn't pay much child support. Tyler tried unsuccessfully to stop publication and was very angry with Foxe, but they became friends once again when Cyrinda learned she had brain cancer. Tyler paid her medical bills until her death in 2002.

On the Santa Monica '72 live album, Bowie says that this is about a "a New York lady and a guy who lives in New York and he's called The Jean Genie" (referring to the rebellious French writer Jean Genet). David Bowie added in his 2005 book Moonage Daydream: "Starting out as a lightweight riff thing I had written one evening in NY for Cyrinda's enjoyment, I developed the lyric to the otherwise wordless pumper and it ultimately turned into a bit of a smorgasbord of imagined Americana... based on an Iggy-type persona .The title, of course, was a clumsy pun upon Jean Genet."

This was one of the first tracks Bowie wrote in New York City. He loves the city and has written many of his songs there. In 2001, Bowie opened the "Concert For New York," a tribute to the police, firemen, and rescue workers involved in the World Trade Center attacks.