Bowie wrote "Moonage Daydream" specifically for fashion designer Fred Burrett, whom he met in The Sombrero gay bar and decided to groom for stardom. Burrett, who changed him name to Freddie Burretti, is credited as a vocalist on the song, but whatever contributions he might have made never actually made it onto the track.
Bowie got the lyrics for "Moonage Daydream" by using the cut-up method employed by Beat novelist William S. Burroughs (Naked Lunch) and artist Brion Gysin. At the time of "Moonage Daydream" he was doing this manually, cutting up his own jottings and then rearranging them at random, looking for psychic patterns. Later, he took to using a computer program that allowed him to draw large text samples from books and magazines, as well.
This was first released as the debut single of David Bowie's side project, Arnold Corns, in 1971. It flopped, but was subsequently dusted down to be the song that heralds the arrival of Ziggy Stardust on The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. The B-side of the 1971 single, "Hang on to Yourself," also later appeared on the Ziggy Stardust album.
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