David Bowie Trivia
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64 free David Bowie trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
57 free David Bowie trivia questions with answers. David Bowie changed his name to avoid a Monkee, got his famous eye in a schoolyard punch-up, and spent the next five decades reinventing himself faster than anyone could keep up. This quiz walks the whole arc: the mime student and the Laughing Gnome, Space Oddity's launch alongside Apollo 11, Ziggy Stardust and his Hammersmith farewell, plastic soul and the Thin White Duke, the Berlin years with Iggy Pop and Eno, Let's Dance with Nile Rodgers, Tin Machine, the Bowie Bonds and the secret jazz sessions that produced Blackstar two days before he died. The films get their own share, from The Man Who Fell to Earth to Labyrinth and The Prestige, along with the Broadway run as the Elephant Man, the Queen collaboration and the Vanilla Ice lawsuit. It suits music trivia nights and Bowie obsessives alike, with easy questions up front and genuinely obscure ones toward the end. Every answer was checked against the Wikipedia articles on Bowie, his albums, his songs and his films, and each question shows the sentence that supports it once you answer. No lyrics are quoted. Free, no signup.
30 of 64 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Bowie was born with which surname?
Jones
He was born David Robert Jones in Brixton, south London, on 8 January 1947, and only adopted the stage name Bowie in September 1965.
Q 02Why did the young singer switch from performing as Davy Jones in the mid-1960s?
A Monkee shared it
He took the name from the 19th-century American pioneer James Bowie and the knife he popularised.
Q 03Bowie's permanently dilated pupil was the result of what?
A school fight over a girl
His friend George Underwood punched him in the left eye in 1962; Underwood later designed the artwork for Bowie's early albums.
Q 04What is the medical name for Bowie's eye condition, a permanently dilated pupil?
Anisocoria
Anisocoria means unequal pupil sizes; the 1962 punch paralysed the muscles of his left pupil, leaving it permanently dilated and giving him faulty depth perception.
Q 05Which of Bowie's older relatives introduced him to modern jazz, Buddhism, Beat poetry and the occult?
His half-brother Terry Burns
Terry had schizophrenia and lived alternately at home and in psychiatric wards.
Q 06Space Oddity was released as a single on 11 July 1969, five days before what event?
The Apollo 11 launch
The BBC used it as background music during its coverage of the Moon landing.
Q 07In which 1983 film did Bowie play a vampire opposite Catherine Deneuve?
The Hunger
In Tony Scott's The Hunger (1983) Bowie played John Blaylock, the rapidly ageing vampire lover of Catherine Deneuve's Miriam; Susan Sarandon co-starred.
Q 08Which astronaut's 2013 cover of Space Oddity produced the first music video filmed in space?
Chris Hadfield
Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded his Space Oddity cover aboard the International Space Station in May 2013; Bowie's original topped the UK chart on reissue in 1975.
Q 09Bowie wrote the Hunky Dory song Kooks for whom?
His newborn son
Duncan Zowie Haywood Jones was born on 30 May 1971 and grew up to direct the film Moon.
Q 10Who were the three members of the Spiders from Mars?
Ronson, Bolder and Woodmansey
Mick Ronson (guitar), Trevor Bolder (bass) and Woody Woodmansey (drums) were Bowie's band from 1972 to 1973; Ronson had already played on The Man Who Sold the World.
Q 11Bowie's July 1972 Top of the Pops performance of which song cemented his UK breakthrough?
Starman
Starman, performed on Top of the Pops on 6 July 1972 with Bowie's arm draped round Mick Ronson, sent the single to UK number ten and the Ziggy Stardust album up the chart.
Q 12Where and when did Bowie abruptly 'retire' Ziggy Stardust on stage?
Hammersmith Odeon, July 1973
On 3 July 1973 at London's Hammersmith Odeon, Bowie announced 'the last show that we'll ever do'; D. A. Pennebaker's film of it went on general release in 1983.
Q 13Which 1973 album was Bowie's first UK number one?
Aladdin Sane
Q 21Which three albums make up the Berlin Trilogy?
Low, Heroes and Lodger
Low and 'Heroes' (both 1977) and Lodger (1979) form the Berlin Trilogy, all made with Brian Eno and co-producer Tony Visconti.
Q 22Which Bowie album was recorded entirely at Berlin's Hansa Studios, with Robert Fripp on guitar?
Heroes
'Heroes' (1977) was the only Berlin Trilogy album made wholly in the city, at Hansa Tonstudio beside the Wall, with Robert Fripp on guitar; Low was mostly recorded in France and Lodger in Switzerland and New York.
Q 23Two days after Marc Bolan's TV show in 1977, Bowie recorded a Christmas duet with whom?
Bing Crosby
Aladdin Sane topped the UK chart in May 1973; Bowie called it 'Ziggy goes to America', and it yielded The Jean Genie and Drive-In Saturday.
Q 14Which song did Bowie write and produce for Mott the Hoople in 1972?
All the Young Dudes
Bowie gave Mott the Hoople All the Young Dudes and produced their 1972 album of that name; the single reached UK number three. That year he also co-produced Lou Reed's Transformer.
Q 15Diamond Dogs grew partly from a plan to set which novel to music?
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Bowie wanted to stage Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four but the author's widow refused the rights, so songs like 1984 and Big Brother went into Diamond Dogs (1974).
Q 16Fame, Bowie's first US number one, was co-written with which Beatle?
John Lennon
John Lennon co-wrote Fame with Bowie and Carlos Alomar at New York's Electric Lady Studios in January 1975; it topped the Billboard Hot 100 that September.
Q 17On which US TV show did Bowie mime Fame and Golden Years in 1975?
Soul Train
Bowie mimed Fame and Golden Years on Soul Train in November 1975, at the height of his Young Americans 'plastic soul' period.
Q 18Which persona did Bowie adopt for the 1976 album Station to Station?
The Thin White Duke
The Thin White Duke, a gaunt figure in white shirt and black waistcoat, fronted Station to Station (1976) and its world tour, the peak of Bowie's cocaine years in Los Angeles.
Q 19In The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976), Bowie played an alien named what?
Thomas Newton
Bowie played Thomas Jerome Newton, an alien seeking water for his dying planet, in Nicolas Roeg's The Man Who Fell to Earth, his first major film role.
Q 20Which Iggy Pop song, co-written by Bowie, did Bowie re-record for Let's Dance?
China Girl
China Girl was written by Bowie and Iggy Pop for Pop's 1977 album The Idiot; Bowie's own version reached UK number two in 1983.
Bowie taped Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy with Bing Crosby on 11 September 1977 for Bing Crosby's Merrie Olde Christmas; Crosby died five weeks later.
Q 24Which composer adapted the Berlin Trilogy albums into three of his symphonies?
Philip Glass
Philip Glass based his Symphony No. 1 (1992), No. 4 (1996) and No. 12 (2019) on Low, 'Heroes' and Lodger respectively.
Q 25Bowie narrated a 1978 recording of which classical work?
Peter and the Wolf
Bowie narrated Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf with Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra; RCA released it in 1978, the year of his Isolar II tour.
Q 26Bowie recruited regulars from which London club, including Steve Strange, for the Ashes to Ashes video?
Blitz
Bowie visited the Blitz club in Covent Garden and picked Steve Strange and three other regulars for the 1980 Ashes to Ashes video, giving the New Romantics international exposure.
Q 27In 1980-81 Bowie played which role on Broadway, without stage make-up?
The Elephant Man
Bowie played John Merrick in The Elephant Man, opening in Denver in July 1980 and running on Broadway from September 1980 to January 1981, portraying the deformity through posture alone.
Q 28Under Pressure, Bowie's 1981 one-off with Queen, was recorded at which studio?
Mountain, Montreux
Queen and Bowie improvised Under Pressure at Mountain Studios in Montreux, Switzerland, in July 1981, where Queen were recording Hot Space; it topped the UK chart that November.
Q 29Which rapper had to settle with Bowie and Queen for sampling Under Pressure uncredited?
Vanilla Ice
Vanilla Ice lifted the Under Pressure bassline for Ice Ice Baby (1990); after a threatened lawsuit he settled and Bowie and Queen were given songwriting credits.
Q 30Who co-produced Let's Dance, Bowie's biggest commercial success?
Nile Rodgers
Chic's Nile Rodgers co-produced Let's Dance with Bowie at New York's Power Station in December 1982; its title track topped both the UK and US charts in 1983.