“You DO remember working with Bing Crosby?”
“I’m not sure if at that time BING was aware that we were working…I think that we were both working with each other, but COMPLETELY UNAWARE that we were…in our own different ways we had an altered….”
“You had a duet together.”
“After a fashion, yeah!”
–Regis Philbin and David Bowie
Here’s the source for this quote, a very funny interview from when David Bowie appeared on Regis and Kelly in 2002. Bowie was quite a young man when he filmed that duet with Crosby in September of 1977; Crosby was not just in his 70s but was actually little more than a month away from his own death from a heart attack. In the interview Bowie speculates that by this time, Mr. Crosby was looking back on his life and reminiscing, and Mr. Bowie doesn’t seem to have felt that Crosby was terribly interested in this young guy with whom he was doing a quick one-off duet.
So naturally, that odd duet that seems so odd as to verge on the surreal, with its touchingly awkward intro acted out by two guys clearly just a bit uncomfortable with the whole thing (not to call these two men out specifically, because let’s be honest, has there ever been one of these musical Christmas specials where the little acting-bits between the music wasn’t uncomfortable?), has somehow endured to the point of being a de facto classic of Christmas music. I know that I can’t feel like it’s the Christmas season without hearing this at least once, and I know that I stand in good company herein.
Here are Bing Crosby and David Bowie. “I pray my wish will come true….” Indeed!
It was SO weird. I am watching it in real-time, in part because of BING and BOWIE? It was bizarre and funny and ultimately charming.