Stardust’s leading man Johnny Flynn has just released the first original track from the upcoming Bowie biopic, Good Ol’ Jane. Flynn aimed to make the single sound like “an early, lost [Bowie] song that people haven’t heard”, drawing from the late singer’s love for The Velvet Underground during the period when the film was set.
Stardust is slated for release toward the end of the year, and documents the late singer’s journey to discover his alter ego Ziggy Stardust during a disastrous US tour of The Man Who Sold The World in 1971.
Starring in the title role, Johnny Flynn has released an original song from the upcoming Bowie biopic. Good Ol’ Jane is a glossy acoustic track that channels the late singer’s love for The Velvet Underground.
“This was the first time I was writing a song as the character,” Flynn revealed to NME. “You can hear BBC sessions from this period and live radio sessions and you can tell what an influence early Velvet Underground records were, he was often trying to copy Lou’s voice as well.
“‘The Man Who Sold The World’ was getting knocked quite a lot at the time so he was often not playing songs from it, he was covering Jacques Brel and The Velvet Underground and things like that, it’s quite nice to think that he was running away from his own work.
Despite Bowie’s family not supporting the film’s production, the producers decided to focus the attention away from Bowie’s music and towards his career-defining persona. The film has already hit snags along the way due to the pandemic, with its scheduled premiere at Tribeca Film Festival postponed and no concrete data set for release.
Check out the song below:
