Rebellion, Resurrection, and Rock ’n’ Roll: The Story of Iggy Pop’s Lust For Life
- Ben Preece
- 6 days ago
- 8 min read
The story of Iggy Pop and David Bowie, and a record that still bites back. A Waxx Lyrical Record of The Month Deep Dive into Iggy Pop's Lust For Life.
Listening to Lust For Life now, and learning its detailed story, it lands like a back-alley sermon on one of friendship and reclamation. Released in 1977, just months after his solo debut The Idiot, Iggy Pop’s second solo album with David Bowie was less art-rock séance this time around — and more streetwise snarl. Where The Idiot lingered in the shadows of Berlin’s crumbling glamour, Lust For Life kicks down the door, all teeth and twitching muscle.
The opening drumbeat is now instantly iconic, but back then, it was a signal: Iggy wasn’t just back — he was alive. And ferociously so. The drugs were (mostly) gone, the nihilism momentarily tamed, and in their place was a lean, wiry defiance. He’s not cleaned up, exactly, but he’s clear-eyed — for now. What he delivers here isn’t just one of the most enduring records of the punk era. It’s one of the most thrilling comebacks in rock history.
Iggy, Bowie and the Berlin Years
By 1976, Iggy Pop was spiralling. The Stooges had dissolved in a haze of violence, drugs, and self-destruction. Bowie, himself freshly escaping the cocaine blizzard of Station to Station, pulled Iggy from the wreckage and brought him on tour for support. That gesture would change both of their lives.
Following the tour, the pair decamped to Europe in search of sobriety and anonymity. They landed in France first, at Château d'Hérouville, where they began work on The Idiot — a dark, brooding, Bowie-heavy affair that pulled Iggy toward art-rock abstraction.
Bowie, rejuvenated and creatively resurgent, then made Low, which became a surprise hit. He refused to tour it. Instead, he hit the road again — this time as Iggy Pop’s keyboardist, often in near-total darkness, refusing to draw attention to himself. The tour was a success. RCA saw potential. Iggy was signed. And for his next move, he insisted on taking the reins.
"He knew he needed to sound like himself again," Bowie would later say. "So I let him." They settled in Berlin, but didn’t live together this time. Iggy wanted autonomy. And out of that separation came Lust For Life — a rawer, rowdier, more recognisable howl from a man who'd once stared death down and laughed.
The Album: Blood, Bruises and Brilliance
The entirety of Lust For Life was recorded in just eight days at Hansa Studio in West Berlin — a space perched mere metres from the Berlin Wall, where guards patrolled and tension hung in the air like smoke.
Inside, it was just as charged. Bowie returned to the producer’s chair and the piano, while Tony Fox and Hunt Sales — sons of a TV comedian but ruthless players in their own right — locked into rhythm with surgical precision and animal instinct. They’d grown up hanging out with Frank Sinatra and other showbiz titans thanks to their father, and cut their teeth recording with Todd Rundgren’s art-rock outfit Runt. Later, they backed Iggy and James Williamson on Kill City. Iggy was struck by their combustible chemistry and once called them “real talented. And pretty mad. Especially together.”
Fresh off tour with Iggy and Bowie, the group marched straight into the studio to capture the wild energy that had been blowing minds onstage night after night.
Where The Idiot had been cerebral and sculpted, Lust For Life was impulsive and incendiary. The guitars are sharper, the drums hit harder, and Iggy snarls like a man jolted back to life. His voice veers between deadpan detachment and berserker howl, catching the exact moment between relapse and reinvention.
The sessions were raw, sometimes improvised, but never sloppy. The band tracked live, often in one or two takes, letting energy override polish.
And yet, for all its livewire brilliance, Lust For Life almost vanished on arrival. Just as the record was due for release in August 1977, Elvis Presley unexpectedly died. RCA’s UK pressing plants were immediately diverted to churn out stock of Presley’s long out-of-print back catalogue, leaving Iggy’s triumphant return understocked and under-supported in stores. One king died as another came back swinging — and RCA missed the beat.
Track by Track: Iggy Pop, Lust For Life
‘Lust For Life’
Written by Bowie, it's pure locomotive. Galloping drums, snarling vocals, and a reckless grin. It's now an iconic juggernaut — riff-heavy, defiant. The drumbeat was blatantly ripped by Jet for their debut single, but Pop and Bowie themselves were inspired by Motown's own 'You Can't Hurry Love'. The whole band joins in by the chorus, building a sound that you can’t fight. Joy Division’s Stephen Morris once said: "Those drums were massive. I still want to sound like that."
Fun fact: The drumbeat was inspired by the Morse code rhythm used by the American Forces Network in Berlin.🎧
For fans of: The Rolling Stones, The Hives, Queens of the Stone Age
‘Sixteen’
Short, sharp, savage, it's the only track on the album written entirely by Iggy. It's a two-minute hormonal tantrum whose lyrical framing reads more troubling with each passing year, a relic of an era with different (and deeply flawed) standards.
Fun fact: Hunt Sales’ feral drumming gives this one its snarling heartbeat.
For fans of: The Damned, Dead Boys, early Misfits
‘Some Weird Sin’
A loping groove undercuts Iggy’s melancholy. Bowie’s backing vocals elevate it to cult-classic status. Its message is about anxiety, rejection (or displacement) and drug use
Fun fact: “Weird sin” was actually Iggy’s own term for the ache of not fitting in.
For fans of: Television, Lou Reed, Nick Cave
‘The Passenger’
A world-weary wanderer’s hymn with a bounce as eternal as its riff. Ricky Gardiner’s guitar gives it that hypnotic lilt, while Iggy’s lyrics trace the rhythm of Berlin’s S-Bahn — or so the myth goes.
In truth, the song was penned while riding shotgun in Bowie’s car. Iggy didn’t have a license or vehicle at the time, but what he did have was a copy of Jim Morrison’s The Lords / Notes on Visions. Its themes of modern life as a highway journey fed directly into the lyrics, along with a passing billboard for the Antonioni film The Passenger starring Jack Nicholson. Siouxsie and the Banshees gave it a goth-laced cover in the '80s, as did Michael Hutchence for the Batman Forever soundtrack. It’s since become one of Pop’s most recognisable songs — endlessly licensed across ads, films, and television.
Fun fact: Not released as a single, but became one of his most covered and beloved songs.
For fans of: Bauhaus, Echo & The Bunnymen, Interpol
‘Tonight’
A haunted love letter wrapped in dope smoke, with Bowie’s backing vocals giving it one hell of a lift. It’s a song of apology and withdrawal — equal parts tender and tormented.
Fun fact: When Iggy ran into financial trouble in the 1980s, Bowie reimagined 'Tonight' as a pop duet with Tina Turner — purely to help Iggy collect royalties.
For fans of: Scott Walker, Mark Lanegan, Spiritualized
‘Success’
The sound of Iggy and Bowie taking the piss — part comic relief, part savage mockery. It struts with call-and-response swagger, all duel-guitar riffage and eye-roll energy. A piss-take turned power anthem.
Fun fact: Bowie wanted to cut this. Iggy insisted it stay. For fans of: T-Rex, Ween, Cake
‘Turn Blue’
A seven-minute slow-burn confessional, written in the depths of Iggy’s addiction — and it shows. Brooding, stretched thin, and strung out, it drips with a sense of dread and detachment. The song crawls rather than walks, refusing to offer resolution.
Fun fact: Originally titled 'Moving On, it's the only track without printed lyrics on the sleeve.
For fans of: The Doors, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, The Walkmen
‘Neighborhood Threat’
All glam menace and punk poise. Iggy sounds like he’s peering out a Berlin tenement window, watching the world come apart with a half-smirk. The guitars are jagged, the vocals twitch with tension — it’s menacing and magnetic.
Fun fact: Inspired by Berlin street characters. Bowie later covered it on Tonight. (Meh.)
For fans of: Gary Numan, Placebo, The Stooges
‘Fall in Love With Me’
Born from a studio jam, this one feels loose, lascivious, and a little bit louche — a fitting closer. The lyrics were reportedly inspired by Iggy’s then-girlfriend Esther Friedmann, and there’s a sense of both urgency and playfulness in the way he delivers them. It’s less about polish and more about feel, swaggering its way to the finish line like a drunk making a pass at last call.
Fun fact: The track grew out of a spontaneous band groove, with Iggy writing the lyrics on the spot.
For fans of: Lou Reed, The Cramps, early Primal Scream
Choose Lust: One Of The Greatest Soundtrack Needle Drops In History!
For many, Lust For Life is inextricably attached to Trainspotting. Danny Boyle’s 1996 film didn’t just use the song — it reframed it. That opening drumbeat, once a marker of Iggy’s comeback, became the soundtrack to a new wave of cultural rebellion: Mark Renton running, heroin rushing, Scotland reeling. It was visceral, iconic, and unforgettable.
The track featured prominently in both the film and its marketing campaign, earning a new generation of fans and propelling the single to No. 26 on the UK charts when reissued with a fresh video. It also cracked the US alternative charts, climbed to No. 44 in Canada, and soared to No. 2 in Iceland. Virgin Records seized the moment, releasing Nude & Rude, a greatest hits compilation to capitalise on the sudden Iggy boom.
Biographer Joe Ambrose compared the resurgence to The Doors’ 'The End' after Apocalypse Now — cinematic recontextualisation at its most powerful.
In 1999, Iggy reflected on the track’s second life:
"When I made Lust For Life, I really thought America was gonna rock to this motherfucker. And it took 20 fuckin' years which is a really long time to wait. I guess what happened is that there was this system that wasn't gonna fuckin' give me a break, and I outlived the system. The movies and advertisers have subverted the stranglehold of radio in America, and there are now other ways for people to hear music. All of a sudden, – a few years ago when Trainspotting came out – I was walkin' down the street and I'd heard Raw Power comin' out of the bars.
What began as a needle drop in a drug flick became a full-blown resurrection. Suddenly, this 1977 anthem was recontextualised as the soundtrack to a new kind of rebellion — kitchen-sink hedonism and heroin chic. Lust For Life wasn’t just back; it became a defining song of the '90s.
In 2017, it roared back once more, remixed by The Prodigy for T2 Trainspotting — proof that some lifelines are just too wired to be cut.
Why It Still Rips Today
Here we are, more than four decades on, Lust For Life still snarls, still seduces, still inspires. Its echo can be heard in garage revivalists, post-punk outfits, indie icons, and blockbuster trailers. Joy Division, Jet and Travis took direct inspiration from the drums and guitars, while covers by the likes of Tom Jones, The Pretenders, Bad Livers, Manic Street Preachers, The Damned and The Smitereens have graced airwaves over the years.
It’s timeless and is not an album that ages — it mutates. It shape-shifts. It survives by sheer force of will. Bowie’s fingerprints are there, sure, but this is Iggy’s voice, Iggy’s rage, Iggy’s resurrection. The fact he lived to make it at all feels miraculous. The fact it still feels vital? That’s what makes it immortal.
This wasn’t just a comeback. It was a riot set to the loudest drums you’ve ever heard.
“I’m not the voice of reason. I’m the guy who’s always leaned a little too far forward — and I’m still here.”— Iggy Pop
And yes — he is still here. Outliving Bowie, standing tall next to Keith Richards, forever enshrined as one of rock’s greatest “How the hell is he still alive?” legends — the kind we ought to wrap in cotton wool and thank our lucky stars for while we still can.