Ziggy Stardust

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History

Just to get something really confusing out of the way: When this article says “Ziggy Stardust,” we’re talking about the song. When this article says Ziggy Stardust, we’re talking about the album, whose full title is The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. And when this article says Ziggy Stardust, we’re talking about the character. Now, without further ado, the history of Ziggy Stardust… and Ziggy Stardust… and “Ziggy Stardust.”

David Bowie was a singer, musician, actor, and force of nature. He’s been described as a musical chameleon, and a man who played with the idea and mythology of being a rock star. In 1969, after releasing a few singles and a solo album that didn’t really go anywhere, he released his first hit single, the vaguely topical “Space Oddity.” He followed this up with albums like The Man Who Sold the World and Hunky Dory. While these albums are now beloved, they were commercial failures in the early 70s. 

While in sessions for Hunky Dory, Bowie began writing songs for a new project. He was creating a character–a bisexual alien rockstar by the name of Ziggy Stardust. Bowie pulled on numerous influences–not just musicians like Vince Taylor, the Legendary Stardust Cowboy, but from Japanese kabuki theater and mime. This character was almost a messiah figure, exploring ideas of celebrity worship. 

“Ziggy Stardust,” the song, was written in 1971, shortly before the sessions of Hunky Dory began. It is a story song, detailing the fall of Ziggy Stardust, and his band The Spiders from Mars. Despite being an engaging performer and great guitar player, drugs and ego lead to Ziggy being alienated from his band and his fans. At the end of the story, after the kids kill the man inside Ziggy, his bandmates decide to break up the band. 

“Ziggy Stardust” is a song that epitomizes that 70s glam rock sound. Between Bowie’s nearly sensual vocal delivery and Mick Ronson’s crunchy guitar part, it exudes a primal, sexual energy, which especially explodes in the B section. It became the title song and centerpiece of Bowie’s 1972 album, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (or Ziggy Stardust for short).

Ziggy Stardust was the album that proved Bowie wasn’t a one-hit wonder. It was huge in the UK, and it took America by storm. It even boosted the sales of prior efforts like Hunky Dory. Bowie retired the Ziggy character in 1973, and continued to make genre-bending classic albums throughout the rest of his career.

Let’s move a little forward in time, and very far away from David Bowie. In 1994, a little Vermont band named Phish played a show on Halloween. Though they had played Halloween shows before, this one was different: the second set featured a full-length cover of The Beatles’ eponymous release commonly called The White Album. This was a well-regarded move by the band and the fans, so they continued the tradition, playing albums like The Who’s Quadrophenia, Remain in Light, The Rolling Stones’ Exile on Main Street, and Little Feat’s Waiting for Columbus. 

In 2013, Phish introduced a new twist on the Halloween concept. They played an album from the future- their future- entitled Wingsuit. This featured a whole album’s worth of Phish material making its debut that night. Wingsuit proved to be a divisive set among Phish fans, though the songs were later released as the Fuego album. 

In 2014, they announced they’d be returning back to covers with their Halloween sets. This turned out to be a half-truth. The band “covered” Chilling, Thrilling Sounds of the Haunted House, an old Disney sound effects record. What this meant was they played a full set’s worth of original instrumentals, featuring samples of the vocals and sound effects from the Disney record. 

So it seemed like this was the creative direction the band wanted to go with Halloween. Instead of straight forward covers, they’d do some twist and debut original material. And that’s been true to this day- all the Halloween shows since 2013 have featured original material. With one exception: Halloween 2016, where the band played David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust in full.

On January 10th, 2016, David Bowie passed away from liver cancer. His spirit rose a meter and stepped aside. Fans around the world were grieving the loss of the musical titan. Many found themselves digging back into Bowie’s discography. Some found comfort in Blackstar, Bowie’s album with themes about mortality released two days before he died. Some found it in Ziggy Stardust, continually mesmerized by the magic of the starman. 

Phish clearly found themselves with Bowie on the brain. They already had some relationship with Bowie’s music–not only did they name a song after him, they had covered “Life on Mars?” starting in 1995. But in June of 2016, the band introduced an a cappella cover of “Space Oddity.” Trey recounted in the Halloween Phishbill that “Once we did ‘Space Oddity,’ it was a conversation we had pretty quickly. ‘Oh, Halloween is coming up. Let’s do Ziggy Stardust.” 

Trey talked about the high bar being set by covering Ziggy, even by Halloween standards. The band had different levels of relationship with the album–Trey got into it in college, while Mike had never heard it before the band started practicing. The album is played mostly straightforward, with very few jams and faithful arrangements including both a string section and back-up singers. 

Phish’s cover of “Ziggy Stardust,” like most songs from the Ziggy set, is incredibly faithful to the original Bowie recording. While it ditched the acoustic rhythm guitar part, Trey nailed the Ronson licks–both the main riff, and the little ornamentations in the verse. Fishman went hard on Woodmansey’s drum fills. The song was sung by Page, who was standing in front of the band with his microphone a la “Lawn Boy.” Page is no Bowie (no one is), but he was having a lot of fun as frontman, and playing off Trey, his Mick Ronson for the evening. 

And as “Ziggy” finished, the crowd roared, Phish began the high energy intro to “Suffragette City.” The band played on through the end of the album. Even after the band finished playing the album, bits of Bowie were heard throughout the rest of the show. The “2001” in Set 3 features a tease of “Fame,” and the encore was, what else, “Space Oddity.”

Generally when Phish plays a Halloween set, one song off the album tends to stick around in semi-regular rotation. Not every song gets to join the pantheon of “Crosseyed and Painless” or “Rock and Roll.”  When it comes to the Ziggy album, “Moonage Daydream” is the song that captured the band’s attention, being played eight times since Halloween ‘16. Other songs off the album have made appearances. “Starman” and “Rock and Roll Suicide” poked their heads out during the Baker’s Dozen run. “Five Years” was busted out nearly five years later at the 10/28/21 Numbers Show. “Ziggy Stardust” has not been played since 10/31/16, and there are only four guys that know if it’ll ever be played again. 

But on one glorious night, the band took the grief that millions of fans around the world felt for the starman waiting in the sky, and reminded us: Ziggy played guitar.

Last updated: 07/12/25

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