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From: ktoop
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  • You guys cannot tell me that Bowie doesn't have passion or emotion in his music. Let's just leave it at they're both beautifully great tunes.

  • who was fucking who ? iggy david or david iggy

  • This song is really about loving somebody (in the song, a China Girl), and them not feeling the same way. I love the tune, and how Iggy Pop makes himself sound so depressed by the end of the song. Truly a classic! I love this version farm ore better than David Bowe's version. This has so much feeling and heart in it.

  • It's a dark song period. Iggy and Bowie may have interpreted it differently but it's still an intense song. Despite it's chart success, I wouldn't say Bowie's was a typical pop song. Personally, I prefer Bowie's but Iggy's is riveting too. I love 'em both!

  • minut 2:05... under my skin... 

  • I listened to this version first, the Bowie's version did nothing for me. This is absolutely "music to my ears" :P Who the hell needs drugs when you can listen to music like this to make you FEEL

  • better than bowie's version

  • This is the song they play at the end of the world.

  • I heard Bowie's version first, years before I heard Iggy's. However, when I heard Iggy sing it, it made sense. It wasn't a love song, it was a death knell. Apocalyptic almost. Needless to say, as much as I love Bowie's version, this one just does it for me.

  • I like Bowies version a little more but I still love how "it's in the whites of my eyes!" echoes into oblivion

  • I like David Bowie too, but Iggys version sounds much better - I love these guitar riffs :3

  • When he sings "it's in the white on my eyes" it is just legendary. It encloses the spirit of rock 'n' roll.

  • Iggy Pop...more like iggy homo

  • @singledave73

    Cuz you're a faggot... :DD

  • @singledave73 Call MENSA!!

  • bowies version is sooooo much better.

  • @blackcat91000 If You mean in terms of "pop" or "HIT" material yes. But I think this version (original) is far better in the sense of being a great Rock N Roll song! IMHO :-)>

  • When comparing the two versions, all I can tell you is that I gravitate towards gravitas. David Bowie had exhausted his entire supply of that vital component in memorable entertainments before New Year's Day of 1981. Post-1980 Bowie is like the Adam West Batman.

  • if u don't like western culture get the fuck out jerry smith

  • If I want to be seduced into bed with the promise of marriage, I'd go for Bowie's version. If I want raw passion with no promises of anything, I'd go for Iggy's version. It's like living in the moment(Pop) VS a romance(Bowie).

    Just my take of it. I love Bowie's version and had heard it first. I like the rawness in this one. It does a lot of things that the other one cannot accomplish for me.

  • fuckingg beautiful remake.. they just don't write em like that anymore. I've been listening to iggy pop since i was like 8 or somethin.. i'm 25, still makes me weep it's sucha beautiful remake of david bowie

  • @A09ER1 it isn't a remake. this was done first.

  • Bowie decided to release the song on Let's Dance so that Pop could collect half the royalties (as co-writer of the track) and get back on his feet financially.

  • @lextorite nice copy paste from wikipedia lol

  • "China Girl" is a song co-written by David Bowie and Iggy Pop during their years in Berlin, first appearing on Pop's album The Idiot (1977). It was more widely popularized when it was rerecorded and released by Bowie on his album Let's Dance (1983). Bowie decided to put the song on his album when Pop, his friend and musical collaborator, was in financial straits (due to his struggle with drug addiction) and was close to facing bankruptcy. 

  • I like both versions, but Bowies a little more...probably because I heard Bowies first though

  • actually hav this same album thats on the screen just cant be fucked to put it in my cd player coz my nose is in love with my china girl

  • I'll give you television, I'll give you eyes of blue, I'll give you men who wanna rule the world.

    Fuck yeah, the most profound fuckin statement about cultural imperialism ever, in a great rock and roll song. But of its time, China has Amerikkka by the balls now :-)

  • andy mccoy OWNS this song

    search: andy mccoy adhd tour

  • Good cover!! If they were anymore stoned,,,they'd played it backwards!! Lol

  • @gonnabaroberts This is no cover. Iggy's been rockin it first.

  • This is just a fenominal song! Thanks Bowie and Iggy

  • christ. first time ive ever heard the original. much much better

  • Iggy wrote this!

  • @treyspr - Co-wrote it with Bowie.

  • It's an incredible song. You can feel nerves twisting and destroying his soul, tormented as if he wants to tear off his skin.

  • Is this song about China White heroin?

  • @04callwilk1

    Yep, the purest for surest. gotta love me some skagg.

    "its in the white of my eyes!" wonderful

  • @BobaFett47 Oh nicee, haven't tried heroin myself.

  • IMO i think bowies has more passion, iggys is just louder

  • I like Iggy´s version best :-)

  • Original version is just about perfect. Bowie's 1983 cover is/was an abomination.

  • @ndv180 its not a cover when you co-write the song

  • I am hopelessly in love with everything David Bowie but I really like Iggy Pop's original version a bit more.

  • The older I get the more annoying Bowie is to me. Iggy gets better with age.

  • @tertommy I agree.....Bowie has become a pantomime dame.....literaly!

  • As much as I love David Bowie, I hate his version of this song. Iggy wins everytime.

  • IGGY DRUNK, BEBADO CANTANDO......

  • MUY LOCO, BEER IGGY....................

  • Iggy co-wrote it

    

  • @livelist

    no2. UK pedantic i know

  • i cant hear the words but its still good, it makes me think of someone sinking deeper and deeper on drugs

  • His singing is good, its just that cursed background music. It's a cacophony, blurring every verse and discernible pattern.

  • Both versions are great. But when Iggy goes deep into his voice with "I stumble into town..." and through the end of the song, it raises the hairs on the back of my neck. After all, every song Iggy Pop sings is the greatest song ever written! 'Nuff said.

  • The song was written BY Bowie FOR Iggy (they were 'mates'!), Iggy released.... no-one listened..... Bowie released, NO1 UK. Me... I like Iggys version, far more passion.

    Over & out.

  • @livelist it was co written by iggy and bowie. as was most of the music on the idiot and lust for life.

  • @livelist they wrote the song together for iggy. david released the song years in "lets dance" cause iggy's financial situation at the time wasnt good at all, and that way he(iggy) could take the regalies for the songwriting. thas why bowie insisted also in make the song a single

  • @livelist I thought Bowie wrote the music and Iggy wrote the lyrics, as with all the songs on The Idiot and most on Lust for Life. Both top albums imo

  • @livelist written by bowie and iggy together, bowie later released a slightly different version to get a financially troubled iggy back on his feet (by letting him collecting half the money bowie got from releasing the song)

  • @livelist still, the idiot was more what bowie wanted to do with sound, but it was all iggys material

  • @livelist you have no idea, man! sorry, but original's song is co-written and singed by Iggy in 1977 and, too many year later, Bowie cover it (if it can be said! excuse me, but english is not my language). Then, before Bowie's version, people start interesting in Iggy. For sure they are fellas, and much part of Iggy's fame is a debt with Bowie, 'cause he bid for Pop, but he bid 'cause he knew that Pop was a genius, and this song is a testimonio!

  • @livelist pretty sure they wrote it together, and Bowie released because if it was successful it would get Iggy out of debt, which could only happen if he had a credit, Iggys version is my fav too, love the way he sings "its in the white of her hers eyes", no other singer Bowie included can top that

  • @livelist co-written

  • @livelist written by Bowie & Pop! In otherwords co-written.

  • This version sounds like a guy on heroin singing about heroin. Bowie's sounds like a guy who smitten with a hot chinese lady.

  • @SolsburyHill22 This is the original version written by Bowie for the Iggy Pop album The Idiot.

    It's also an allegory on the Vietnam war, the china girl being South Vietnam and USA being the singer giving her colour TV and eyes of blue...........ie sticking their imperialistic jackboot where it's not welcome....as usual!

  • @gloog15 Come over here and I'll use my "imperialistic jackboot" to punt your limey, weasly ass.

  • @SolsburyHill22 Thats the point ! Its meant to represent how spaced out he was at the time The " China girl" of the title is china white cocaine.

  • @greenroadster China White is ultra-pure heroin or fentanyl (a synthetic heroin analog).

  • @AkpostedUp of course

  • @SolsburyHill22 You say Heroin likes it's a bad thing...

  • @SolsburyHill22 Wich means that this one got way more feeling

  • @SolsburyHill22 haha very well said!

  • check out the version by James.

    Thats my fave version.

    

  • you can barely hear him

    i like bowie's version better

  • Yes, Iggy 's version is Iggy! and Bowie's is a bit more pop but it is way better sound quality.Gimme Bowie anyday for that quality sound. I don't want Hersheys, I want Lindt.

  • i love iggy pop. his music has been a part of my life since i was a baby (thank you dad) haha, i think hes a great artist.

  • The Bowie version to me sounds way way better, and he can actually sing.

  • It's about China White heroin lol, not a Chinese girl! These guys were bisexual and having a thing back then not running around with women.

  • @thehenge1 Wrong! Bowie was never short of women. The China Girl is an Iggy´s girlfriend. Iggy himself explained that in very derogative terms.

  • is it me or does he sound like a cat dieing in this song!! think david bowie wins this!!!

  • Iggy was romantically in volved with an Asian-american girl, tiny and beautiful.It wasn't like it was secret!

  • The song is full of menace. I think the song is about dark impulses inside of a man that push him toward destruction, whether of himself or others. The lyrics are quite suggestive of this, and finally of of his girlfriends ability to quiet these impulses. It is so different that Bowie's version, which most people take to be a love song; two different takes on the same set of lyrics.

  • @r5t9m0 The song is about heroin. (China Girl is slang for a type of heroin.)

  • David Bowie is one of my idols. He truly is absolutely fantastic, but Iggy's version of China Girl is better in my opinion, much smoother. As far as music goes, I wish I wasn't born in 1995.

  • @Starman123baby Bowie's vocal is much better than Iggy's IMO. It would be nice to hear Bowie's vocal over Iggy's backing track and vice versa.

  • 2:04 => Freezing in my back

  • To be honest, it sounds like a typical Bowie composition.

  • I heard the Bowie version when I was around 10, and loved it. Then many years later, at around 17-18, I heard this. I still can't believe how much I love this over Bowie's. It's so raw, so imperfect, and so powerful.

  • Love iggy but, bowie's version is better.

  • can someone explain why everyone thinks this song (specifically bowie's version) is racist?

  • @classicrockNo1 'visions of swastikas in my head' line I think certainly encourages that perception

  • @mattiomattio i just haven't noticed that, but i'll deffinitely try to listen to it closer.

  • @mattiomattio A line which was almost certainly prompted by the location they wrote the song in.

  • @mattiomattio you realize that swastikas were a buddhist symbol for thousands of years, right? you know, the primary religion in china.

  • @jt7string swastikas I believe have appeared in numerous relgions/ cultures, however I would say in todays culture the most known symbolic cause for the swastika is Nazism- also the fact Bowie who co-wrote this has made references to Nazism in other songs/ public statements of his?

  • @mattiomattio i've never heard bowie say anything even remotely "nazi", but whatever. neither of these guys (iggy or bowie) are afraid to speak their mind. if they wanted to make a racist statement they wouldn't couch it in ambiguity. the song is in large part about the cultural differences between the west and china. the dichotomy of perception regarding the swastika is a perfect example of this, imo - something so reviled in the west is considered so holy there.

  • @jt7string jesus christ the song is about drugs not politics

  • It's a great song. But I prefer Bowie's version.

  • I am a diehard Bowie fan but this version is better. Hell - they are both wonderful!!!

  • No, not about herion...the girl with whom Iggy was deeply in love with at the time (Asian-Amercanin; whose name alas I cannot remember , she was very very lovely; tiny and sweet, and his firdt wife..SuchI? Sachie?)

  • @katoklzmk is about china white guy,the purest thing around at the time..is about a horse guy,dig it...

  • @katoklzmk i think david bowie had a relationship with an asian woman, but i don't know if it was after or before he covered this song

  • this track - so to speat lust 4 life and Idiot in all - was made by bowie to boost Iggy's career - which also succeeded in an unbelievalble manner - bowie had hands on it it all - like Eno had with Low and more 4 David. I love the immense tunes, reproduced and re-told by much less interesting people tro out the music story after. Grace Jones 1 of them.

  • Iggy's "version" isn't just a version. It's the original song. Iggy wrote China Girl. Bowie covered it!

  • @Nostams It was co-written by both Iggy and David.

  • The visceral reaction is likely because Iggy Pop wrote this about a girl he was very much in love with;it's from'The Idiot' which IthinkBowie produced..

  • @katoklzmk fair point, bowie's does lack a lot of the emotion. isnt it about heroin though? China White is a bit of a giveaway, and he talks about drugs quite a bit on The Idiot

  • The music is raw, loud, and unrefined. The vocals are good but seem crowded by everything ells. I think David Bowie mastered the song with his version.

  • mi abuela prefiere esta version a la de bowie. si bien gusta mucho de los discos de bowie, sobre todo low.

  • "Oh Jimmy, just you shut your mouth..."

    ahhhh....

  • if this song was done so it was clearer it would have been better... I like Both just wish there was like a cleaner version I guess or whats that word I'm looking for... oh remastered... :)

  • @dronus I guess you're not familiar with Iggy or have ever heard "Raw Power"?? This is how Iggy WANTED this song to sound!..It's a staple throughout Most of Iggy's early work and ESPECIALLY with the Stooges!..That real RAW and GRITTY sound! =]

  • @dgenerated i'm not familiar with iggy but have heard a couple of their songs from moves and stuff. Like lust for life and this one lol... there are others but I have to listen to them first. I got used to this song and started listening about equally to the david bowie one... cheers...

  • @dgenerated love the part from 1:50 to 2:15... almost have that on repeat lol...

  • something about how iggy sings it makes the hair on my neck stand makes me grind my teeth and makes my muscles tense as if im bracing myself before i fall over  .....fanfuckintastic

  • Iggy rocks!!!

  • mm i like bowies voice more. but i cannot say i dislike iggy's voice. theyre actually very similiar. ha!

  • I love Bowie and Iggy, and I love both their versions... just different things about each.

  • La catharsis à l'état pur......

  • This is THE version - Iggy sings with real passion and horror...

  • Great Version - i like it!!!!!!!!!!!

  • algo de ziggy pop jajajajajaj

  • True that!,even though, both songs are of different sounds,you can't compare Iggy and Bowie both are Great singers and of their own Style.

  • @nylund154 Yes, so wikipedia tells me. Without a citation.  Got real proof of this? Thanks.

  • I like Bowie's version a lot more than this one, though this is alright.

  • it's in the WHIIIITTEEE OFF MY EYESSS

  • TOught man !

  • tHIS GUY IS REALLY FUCKIN' GREAT, i DO THINK. wAHT DO YOU THINK, LEVAN?

  • much prefer this version. like the muddiness and the power, way more energy that bowie.

  • I just strait up think this version is waaaaaay better

  • I like both Bowies and Iggys version, but I probably prefer Iggys by a slight margin because its not as pop like as Bowies :)

  • ROCK  !!!

  • No the song is not about heroin, or addiction. Its about western influence on a Asian girl. How ruinous it is and materialistic and false. About the destructive nature of western culture and uses the china girl as a way of portraying this destruction. Its just too obvious and easy to be about heroin. People should really listen and not automatically assume drug references in iggy's stuff. He was strung out, but this is a clever song

  • You sure its not about the incidence that happened with the chinese spy and the french diplomat?

  • what? how come people think it about drugs? is china girl another term for heroin or something?

  • @JerrySmith2 Thank You!

  • no1 sounds like iggy, it just doesnt happen.

  • agree, i love bowies songs, but this version of china girl is perfect and there is no comparision...iggys version is awesome

  • there is no competition. get your fukin act together. iggys version kicks the shit outta bowies version. simple as.....

  • @lawndog1986 : you're right dude; no competition, no racism in music

  • @lawndog1986 both versions are great and it was written by both of them, its just a different emotion and feelings within each version. bowie´s video is quite funny actually.

  • the album is credited to bowie and iggy so it's unfair to say bowie 'was around at the time of writing' the idiot and lust for life were collaborations

  • I'd love to see what this would've been like if bowie put it on one of his 77 albums. it would have a much different sound to the lets dance version.

  • @GuitarWhisperer The song is about heroin addiction, as sung by an addict. Clearly it should be polished, in tune, sober and sterile, right? /sarcasm

  • I like both versions for different reasons.

    I like about the bowie version that it's more "lovely" and you could actually think he's singing about a girl.

    I ike Iggy's version cuz it has more pain in it.

  • i'm a bowie nut and i love this version. didn't they write the idiot together?

  • I like Iggy Pop's version far more than Bowie's.

  • It's absolutley terrible compared to Bowie's version, Iggy's vocals are all wobbly and distorted

  • iggy is real, very sad...this version is better

  • I think Bowie's is more, poppy, more romantic, wheras Iggy's is darker and sadder

  • my opinion only I think Bowie's version was better

  • this song is so depressing

  • iggy wrote this song and was therefore the origional bowie(who is great) covered him

  • @TheJoestone they both wrote it?

  • @AllOrNothing000

    Yes, Iggy 's version is Iggy! and Bowie's is a bit more pop but it is way better sound quality.Gimme Bowie anyday for that quality sound. I don't want Hersheys, I want Lindt.

    But I thumbs up'd your comment.

  • @bolerocrew Thanks man, I agree quality could be better

  • the play was awesome, the movie was cool, bowie's song kicks ass, iggy's cover sounds awesome, overall this whole story was unbelievable lol

  • Wow, i cant believe people like bowie's version, this version by iggy is much better..

  • u need to unplug ur ears mate

  • Comment removed

  • This is the original.

  • I am such a noob....I never knew that this was done by Iggy....and first at that.

    Bowie did it better.

  • your such a dope. go watch the xfactor

  • Nobody cares about you. Bye.

  • FUCK OFF, STUPID TWAT