Don't Look Down

Album: New Values (1979)
Play Video

Songfacts®:

  • "Don't look down" is advice you hear when you're high in the sky intended to keep you from falling. In this case, Pop uses it as an analog for his wild life: he doesn't want to stop to think about what's going on, he just wants to keep going. This credo led to plenty of stints in rehab, but also a long and colorful career where he never looked down.
  • The New Values album was released five years after Pop's band The Stooges folded. He enlisted two of his former bandmates, James Williamson and Scott Thurston, to work on it. Williamson produced the album and wrote "Don't Look Down" with Pop. He explained in a Songfacts interview: "The riff to 'Don't Look Down' was written in my apartment one rather sad rainy day in my little duplex apartment in Hollywood. It almost came to me as a whole - including verses, choruses, and everything. I wasn't playing in the band or anything at that time, so it just laid dormant for a couple of years until Iggy asked me to produce his album, which would become New Values. During the pre-production, I showed him that song, and he immediately wrote the lyrics. I always loved the way it turned out."
  • David Bowie, who started working with The Stooges in the early '70s, released a cover version with a reggae feel on his 1984 album Tonight. James Williamson was not impressed. "I always thought it was kind of lame," he said. "But I loved the royalties that started coming in from his recording."

Comments

Be the first to comment...

Editor's Picks

The Police

The PoliceFact or Fiction

Do their first three albums have French titles? Is "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da" really meaningless? See if you can tell in this Fact or Fiction.

Director Paul Rachman on "Hunger Strike," "Man in the Box," Kiss

Director Paul Rachman on "Hunger Strike," "Man in the Box," KissSong Writing

After cutting his teeth on hardcore punk videos, Paul defined the grunge look with his work on "Hunger Strike" and "Man in the Box."

Rufus Wainwright

Rufus WainwrightSongwriter Interviews

Rufus Wainwright on "Hallelujah," his album Unfollow The Rules, and getting into his "lyric trance" on 12-hour walks.

80s Video Director Jay Dubin

80s Video Director Jay DubinSong Writing

Billy Joel and Hall & Oates hated making videos, so they chose a director with similar contempt for the medium. That was Jay Dubin, and he has a lot to say on the subject.

Facebook, Bromance and Email - The First Songs To Use New Words

Facebook, Bromance and Email - The First Songs To Use New WordsSong Writing

Where words like "email," "thirsty," "Twitter" and "gangsta" first showed up in songs, and which songs popularized them.

Barney Hoskyns Explores The Forgotten History Of Woodstock, New York

Barney Hoskyns Explores The Forgotten History Of Woodstock, New YorkSong Writing

Our chat with Barney Hoskyns, who covers the wild years of Woodstock - the town, not the festival - in his book Small Town Talk.