david-bowie 40 years ago
singer-songwriter #Music Madness

David Bowie | Blue Jean (1984)

"Blue Jean" is a song written and recorded by English singer-songwriter David Bowie for his sixteenth studio album Tonight (1984).

One of only two tracks on the album to be written entirely by Bowie, it was released as a single ahead of the album and charted within the Top 10 in the UK and the United States, peaking at No. 6 and No. 8, respectively. The song is loosely inspired by Eddie Cochran.


Following the commercial success of Bowie's previous album, Let's Dance, its singles and the Serious Moonlight Tour, "Blue Jean" was launched with a 21-minute short film, Jazzin' for Blue Jean, directed by Julien Temple. The song performance segment from this was also used as a more conventional music video.


The film won the 1985 Grammy Award for "Best Video, Short Form", later renamed "Best Music Video", which proved to be the only competitive Grammy Award Bowie won during his lifetime for over three decades, although Bowie posthumously won four Grammies for his album Blackstar (2016).


"Blue Jean" would remain in Bowie's live repertoire for the rest of his career, being performed on his Glass Spider Tour (1987), Sound+Vision Tour (1990) and A Reality Tour (2004).

David Bowie
1947 - 2016