Day After Day #148: The Passenger

Day After Day is an ambitious attempt to write about a song every day in 2024 (starting on Jan. 4). 

The Passenger (1977)

After the Stooges imploded for the second time in 1974, Iggy Pop was at a crossroads. He was struggling with a drug problem and was unable to get his career back on track. He recorded an album with James Williamson (Kill City), but it wouldn't come out for a few years. 

Iggy checked himself into a mental institution to help him get off drugs. His friend David Bowie, who produced the Stooges' epic Raw Power album, visited him in rehab and eventually took him out on tour as a guest for Bowie's Station to Station tour in 1976. Bowie and Pop relocated to West Berlin to wean themselves off their drug addictions and then began working on new Iggy Pop music.

The first album released was The Idiot, which was recorded in the summer of 1976. It marked a shift in sound for Iggy from Stooges proto-punk to electronic art rock influenced by acts like Kraftwerk. Bowie produced and composed most of the music, which included classics like "Sister Midnight," "Nightclubbing" and "China Girl," which was famously covered by Bowie several years later.

The Idiot received critical acclaim, although some of Pop's fans felt it was more of a Bowie album. As it turned out, they recorded The Idiot first and then Bowie recorded Low right afterward in a similar style; Low came out in January 1977 and then Bowie convinced RCA to release The Idiot, which went top 40 in both the U.S. and U.K. Bowie chose not to tour behind Low, but instead support Pop on a tour, playing keyboards and staying in the background on stage. 

After the tour ended, Pop and Bowie returned to Berlin to work on a new album. The tour band worked on the album: guitarist Ricky Gardiner, brothers Tony and Hunt Sales on bass and drums and Bowie on keyboards. Pop wanted to assert himself more in the production and Bowie took a step back, and the resulting album reflected more of Iggy's garage rock background. 

The title track is probably Iggy's biggest song, but "The Passenger" is a total classic. Written by Pop and Gardiner, the lyrics were inspired by a Jim Morrison poem that saw modern life as a journey by car. Pop had been riding around North America and Europe with Bowie on tour.

"I am a passenger/And I ride, and I ride/I ride through the city's backsides/I see the stars come out of the sky/Yeah, they're bright in a hollow sky/You know it looks so good tonight/I am the passenger/I stay under glass/I look through my window so bright/I see the stars come out tonight/I see the bright and hollow sky/Over the city's ripped back sky/And everything looks good tonight."

The song has a laid-back groove that's accentuated by Pop's refrain: "Singin' la la la la la la la la."

Pop had hoped to release the song as a single but RCA made it the B-side to the song "Success." It didn't chart, but it has grown in stature over the years. After it was used in a car commercial in 1998, Virgin Records released "The Passenger" as an A-side and it went to #22 on the U.K. Singles chart.  Lust for Life wasn't a huge hit when it came out, but it's considered a major achievement in retrospect.

"Oh, the passenger/How, how he rides/Oh, the passenger/He rides and he rides/He looks through his window/What does he see?/He sees the silent hollow sky/He sees the stars come out tonight/He sees the city's ripped backside/He sees the winding ocean drive/And everything was made for you and me/All of it was made for you and me/'Cause it just belongs to you and me/So let's take a ride and see what's mine."

The song has been licensed to countless movies, TV shows and commercials over the years. Siouxsie and the Banshees covered it in 1987 and it went to #41 on the U.K. Singles chart.

Pop had a rollercoaster career that waxed and waned over the years, but he's continued to make music. I saw him twice, both at the Orpheum in Boston: once in 1991 at the WFNX Best Music Poll Awards and then again in 2016 on the tour for his great album Post Pop Depression. Both were electrifying performances at different times in his life; even the last show, which took place when he was 69, Pop was limping around on a bad hip and he still jumped into the crowd. The man is a rock god.