Heathen and the Prophecy of David Bowie
In 2001, David Bowie was recording an album on a mountaintop when history walked into the room. Between the initial session and the overdubs was September 11, 2001. Bowie’s output from those sessions was Heathen, the 2002 album that reunited David Bowie with producer Tony Visconti after 22 years apart. Today we’re diving deep into the story of this album and the strange, unplanned way its recording sessions collided with September 11th. We’ll get into the abandoned album hiding inside this one, the eerie parallels between the infamous day and the lyrics Bowie wrote before it all happened, Pete Townshend’s guitar cameo, and the story behind that unsettling blind-eyed cover.
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CHAPTERS:
0:00 Did David Bowie Predict 9/11?
2:12 The Man Who Lost His Beliefs
4:18 A Reunion 22 Years in the Making
9:12 The Prophecy of David Bowie
11:42 The Making of David Bowie’s Heathen
14:30 Were the Lyrics Prophecy?
17:00 We Can Be Heroes
21:20 It Kind of Felt Right
CLIPS & REFERENCES
Concert for New York (Channel 5 News Report, October 21, 2001) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2Yhhitt7jo
ABC World News Tonight, September 11, 2001 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ykx81tQLnBQ
David Bowie in 2002 interview on NBC (Claus Wright via YouTube) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUx_YCKrvbs
David Bowie 2002 interview (Richard’s “David Bowie Channel”) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vH4sA2G8KWs
Uncle Floyd Show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DaGd6vSrDMA
David Bowie Interviewed by George Stroumboulopoulos 2002 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-h81eeze3Jg
David Bowie – Bowie Reveals – Gary Crowley Interview (Metropolitan Hotel) – 04 November 2002 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZqC3paH88c
Bowie 2002 CBS Early Show Interview Heathen https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owXNzsQ1Efw
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@JuanRamirez-y5i
September 8, 2026 at 4:23 am
Bowie like Jimmy Page was in tune with some dark spiritual forces. Him expressing doubts about any kind of objective morality reveals him to be a lost soul. Hope I am wrong about that.
@minus9us
September 8, 2026 at 4:23 am
thats not the lyrics for slow burn!!!! listen to it!
@Acoustic-Rabbit-Hole
September 8, 2026 at 4:23 am
I wasn't even aware of this album. I must say, his Black Tie White Noise (1993) was a surprisingly thorough and wildly snappy album. A slight smooth-jazz ting to it. It just amazed me how he was able to keep turning out great tunes and recordings like this.
@danielairis78
September 8, 2026 at 4:23 am
I didnt understand what was the Kanye West reference (?)
@xxcelr8rs
September 8, 2026 at 4:23 am
Ran to the window, looked for a plane or TWO Panic in Detroit.
@EmmaColeman-j2j
September 8, 2026 at 4:23 am
I seem to remember when David Jones was born, a neighbour or friend declared that he'd been here before. Bowie the twice born. And I believe that.
@brandonboucher7090
September 8, 2026 at 4:23 am
It’s sad what happened to all those people, but what the hell kind of business was going on in the “World Trade Center” anyways?
@rini6
September 8, 2026 at 4:23 am
I love the album. But it is dark, which was, as you said, prophetic. It’s only gotten darker since he passed.
@StuartWray-o4g
September 8, 2026 at 4:23 am
Circa 2002, a radio interviewer noted that Heathen seemef eerily prescient and to forsee the tragedy of 9/11. Bowie responded: "Interestingly enough, there's an artist who I like very much indeed, Natalie Merchant, who wrote an album called 'Motherland' and recorded in the very same studio that we recorded 'Heathen'. There are songs on her album which, had you not known when she had written them, you would have sworn they were written after the events. I think at th particular time – writers especially – were…their antenna were picking up a certain kind of disorder, a certain kind of anxiety that was in the air"
@sampleoffers1978
September 8, 2026 at 4:23 am
He sounds traumatized with concepts around 1230 and whatever lead to that rabbit hole, to trigger anxiety is maybe relevant. New York can really make people think because it can be paced pretty industrially to intimidate people, yet even in rural areas you also have broader awareness because it's never fully where you can totally ignore broader things.
@BrianSmith-vl7xu
September 8, 2026 at 4:23 am
paxman just couldn't see the scope of the Internet. To be fair, not many of us could
@SandrosCoronado
September 8, 2026 at 4:23 am
The forcing of the hand is a theory called Retro Causality.
Everything that could happen and will happen is in the 5th dimension and certain events can be mirrored back in a kaleidoscope effect and the creative minded people, like Bowie and others connected to the arts, pick up on these strands through the aether and are unaware of their origin…. It's put down to just thoughts and ideas from nowhere…. Or the forcing of the hand.
@websurfer5772
September 8, 2026 at 4:23 am
Bowie didn't want to sing?!
@Lewistcatofficalyoutubechannel
September 8, 2026 at 4:23 am
It wasn't a prediction of the future I don't think it was I think it was Bowie being Bowie he was very preceptive of emotions and social ques I think he just felt the tensions building from 1999-2001 and wrote how he felt and how he perceived that the world was heading toward a devastating disaster and something that would change society forever was coming especially since the twenty first century had just started
@daverice2426
September 8, 2026 at 4:23 am
Ha! Never heard the K. West theory; he tried to warn us!!
@baadtaste1337
September 8, 2026 at 4:23 am
Bowie knew LSD
@davidwilliamdanielthomas9305
September 8, 2026 at 4:23 am
The complete, leaked version of Toy was the best work of Bowie's later career. It's a shame that it had been shelved for 10 years. Conversation Piece was the single best Bowie track of the 21st Century.
@óscolláin27
September 8, 2026 at 4:23 am
I love your work Poetic Wax . .. . oh sorry that's Mr Poetic Wax to Me <3
@greendragonreprised6885
September 8, 2026 at 4:23 am
I'm not a prophet or a stone age man, just a mortal with potential of a superman. I'm lining on…..
@candelise
September 8, 2026 at 4:23 am
Listen to 'I Can't See New York' by Tori Amos, written before 9/11. Is she a prophet too?
@candelise
September 8, 2026 at 4:23 am
Todd Rundgren was predicting stuff before Bowie. He was all over the Internet before Bowie as well.