David Bowie was a man of many personas. A number of members of his extended family were on the schizophrenia disorder spectrum. I wore out his third through fifth albums (The Man Who Sold The World, Hunky Dory and Ziggy Stardust and The Spiders From Mars). Bowie said that All the Madmen from his third album recorded at the tender age of 23 was written for and about his half brother, Terry Burns, who had schizophrenia and was an inmate of Cane Hill Hospital (pictured on the original U.S. cover of The Man Who Sold the World) until his suicide in 1985. The lyrics include references to lobotomy, the tranquilizer Librium and EST, or Electroshock Therapy.
-Alan West-