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"Lust for Life"
Song by Iggy Pop from the album Lust for Life
Released	1977
Recorded	1977
Genre	Rock, Punk
Length	5:11
Label	RCA
Writer	Iggy Pop David Bowie
Producer	Bewlay Bros.
Lust for Life track listing
"Lust for Life" (1) Sixteen (2)

"Lust for Life" is a 1977 song performed by Iggy Pop, featured on the album Lust for Life. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked it #147 on their list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

Contents 1 Music 2 References 3 Covers 4 Notes

[edit] Music

Co-written by Iggy Pop and David Bowie, Bowie providing the music (written on a ukelele), and Pop the lyrics, the song is known for its opening drumbeat (played by Hunt Sales).

The song "Mother Mary" by Green Day side project Foxboro Hot Tubs borrows heavily from Lust For Life, as does The Strokes' "Last Nite" and Jet "Are You Gonna Be My Girl".

In 1977, the song reached number 3 in the Dutch Top 40. Its success was ignited by a legendary performance in the Dutch pop TV show Toppop, where Iggy Pop, shirtless, wrecked part of the stage set (which consisted of a couple of potted plants and some cardboard scenery).^[1][2] Although many viewers and newspapers complained about the apparent damage, the director of Toppop later admitted that they knew beforehand what Iggy was going to do and that the damage was minimal.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] References

The song's lyrics contain a number of references to William S. Burroughs' experimental novel The Ticket That Exploded, most notably mentions of "Johnny Yen" (described by Burroughs as "The Boy-Girl Other Half strip tease God of sexual frustration") and "hypnotizing chickens".

In a 1995 interview, Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek and manager Danny Sugerman stated that the opening lyrics were about their deceased heroin dealer, nicknamed "Gypsy Johnny", arriving at Wonderland Avenue, with his heroin and his "motorized dildos". Sugerman also claimed that the riff was a rip-off of "Touch Me" by the Doors.^{[citation needed]}

In 1996, the song gained a new audience when it was used in the introduction of the film Trainspotting. Indeed, this usage made UGO's list of Top 11 Uses of Classic Rock in Cinema

Since then, the song has appeared in a number of other movies and commercials, though sometimes with edits to the lyrics; the version of the song in the film Rugrats Go Wild changes "here comes Johnny Yen again" to "here comes Spike The Dog again." In a commercial for Royal Caribbean, "with liquor and drugs," for instance, was replaced by "looks so fine."^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Covers

• Bruce Willis covered the song for the Rugrats Go Wild soundtrack.
• Tom Jones covered the song in 1999 on his album Reload.
• Mötley Crüe covered the song in 1997 on the B-side of "Afraid."
• Kay Hanley covered the song for the Just Like Heaven soundtrack.

[edit] Notes