Iggy Pop - The Passenger

"I ride through the city's backsides.
I see the stars come out of the sky"

Album: Lust for Life [2nd album]
Recorded: West Berlin, West Germany
Genre: Garage Rock, Punk
Album Release: September 9th 1977
Length: 4:44
Producer: Iggy Pop, Colin Thurston, David Bowie
Vocalist: Iggy Pop [age 30]
Label: RCA

Music Video


Live in Manchester from 1977

Charts, Streams & Sales

Germany: Gold (250,000+)
Italy: Platinum (50,000+)
UK: Gold (400,000+)
Spotify: 350,000,000 +
YouTube Music: 124,000,000 +
Pitchforks 200 Best Songs of the 70s: #95

Credits

Songwriting: Iggy Pop and Ricky Gardiner
Piano: David Bowie
Guitar: Ricky Gardiner
Guitar: Carlos Alamar
Bass: Tony Sales
Drums: Hunt Sales

Details

• In a move which was seriously ill advised RCA refused to release the song as an A-side single, despite the requests of Iggy Pop's management.
• The lyrics were wrote spontaneously in the studio. Iggy said he was inspired by riding around on tour with David Bowie and by a poem he read by Jim Morrison from The Doors. Iggy couldn't drive and had to be chauffered.
  
• David Bowie is credited as saving Iggy Pop from self annihilation by hard drugs. Iggy took David to his parents trailer park and initially felt embarrassed as they made him feel 'uncool'. Eventually Iggy realised this was a necessary step in his recovery journey and without the recovery the 1990s Iggy revival would have never been possible. The serious goodness of this song was almost lost to time and for that reason everybody owes David Bowie and Iggy's parents at least one cup of amazingly good tea.
  
• The music video was made in 2020. A full 43 years after the release of the single. 
  
• Covered by Siouxsie Sioux and the Banshees in 1987
• Covered by Michael Hutchence of INXS in 1995. The song features on the soundtrack to Batman Forever.
• In a development which is sure to delight Baywatch fans there is now a version sung by David Hasselhoff himself.
  

Artwork