David Bowie Trivia
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113 free David Bowie trivia questions with answers — music quiz, new questions added Oct 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 113 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 Bowie stop performing as Davy Jones in the mid-1960s?
A Monkee shared it
A Monkee shared it: to avoid confusion with Davy Jones of the Monkees, he renamed himself after the American frontiersman Jim Bowie and the knife that carries his name.
Q 03Bowie's permanently dilated pupil was the result of what?
A school fight over a girl
A school fight over a girl: his friend George Underwood struck him in the eye in 1962, yet they stayed close and Underwood went on to create artwork for Bowie's early albums.
Q 04Often mistaken for heterochromia, Bowie's mismatched eyes were really which condition?
Anisocoria
Anisocoria, a difference in pupil size: an injury at 15 left one pupil permanently dilated, so that eye looked dark beside the clear blue of the other.
Q 05Which of Bowie's older relatives introduced him to modern jazz, Buddhism, Beat poetry and the occult?
His half-brother Terry Burns
His half-brother Terry Burns, about a decade older, opened those worlds to him while living at home between spells in psychiatric care; Bowie later wrote All the Madmen about him.
Q 06Bowie's Space Oddity was rush-released five days before which Apollo mission lifted off?
Apollo 11
Apollo 11 launched on 16 July 1969, five days after the single came out, and the BBC played the song during its Moon-landing coverage even though its astronaut ends up lost in space.
Q 07In which 1983 film did Bowie star opposite Catherine Deneuve and Susan Sarandon?
The Hunger
The Hunger casts Bowie as John, a vampire whom Deneuve's Miriam promised eternal life; instead he starts to age years within days, in Tony Scott's first feature film.
Q 08Which astronaut's 2013 cover of Space Oddity produced the first music video filmed in space?
Chris Hadfield
Chris Hadfield sang Space Oddity aboard the International Space Station in 2013; Bowie called it 'possibly the most poignant version of the song ever created' and later helped get it back onto YouTube.
Q 09Bowie wrote the Hunky Dory song Kooks for whom?
His newborn son
His newborn son: Bowie was at home listening to a Neil Young record when he heard that Zowie, now the film director Duncan Jones, had been born, and he wrote Kooks in that style.
Q 10Who were the three members of the Spiders from Mars?
Ronson, Bolder and Woodmansey
Ronson, Bolder and Woodmansey backed Bowie through the Ziggy years; a row over wages soured their final tour after the drummer learned the newly hired pianist earned three times his pay.
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, had Bowie pointing straight down the camera at viewers; the single then climbed to UK number ten, his first hit in three years.
Q 12At which London venue did Bowie abruptly retire Ziggy Stardust on stage in July 1973?
Hammersmith Odeon
Hammersmith Odeon: on 3 July 1973 Bowie told the crowd it was 'the last show that we'll ever do', which many fans took to mean he was quitting music, not just retiring Ziggy.
Q 13Which 1973 follow-up to Ziggy Stardust became Bowie's first UK number-one album?
Aladdin Sane
Q 21Which three Bowie albums make up his Berlin Trilogy?
Low, Heroes and Lodger
Low, Heroes and Lodger followed Bowie's 1976 move to West Berlin, where he shared a flat with Iggy Pop while trying to shake the cocaine habit he had built up in Los Angeles.
Q 22Which Bowie album was recorded entirely at Berlin's Hansa Studios, with Robert Fripp on guitar?
Heroes
'Heroes' was made in 1977 at Hansa, a studio so close to the Berlin Wall that his producer recalled border guards watching through binoculars; Bowie said lovers he saw kissing there inspired the title song.
Q 23With whom did Bowie record the Christmas duet Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy in 1977?
Bing Crosby
Aladdin Sane topped the UK chart in spring 1973, where Ziggy Stardust had peaked at number five; Bowie wrote most of it on the road in the United States, which is why America runs through its songs.
Q 14Which song did Bowie write and produce for Mott the Hoople in 1972?
All the Young Dudes
All the Young Dudes was Bowie's rescue act: Mott the Hoople were about to split, so he wrote them the song and produced it, giving the band its biggest UK hit.
Q 15Bowie's Diamond Dogs grew partly from his plan to adapt which novel as a musical?
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 joined a one-day jam at New York's Electric Lady Studios in January 1975 and sang the high 'Fame' backing vocals on what became Bowie's first US number one.
Q 17On which US TV show did Bowie mime Fame and Golden Years in 1975?
Soul Train
Soul Train rarely booked white acts, and a nervous Bowie reportedly had a few drinks before miming Fame and Golden Years there in November 1975, fluffing some of his lines.
Q 18Which persona did Bowie adopt for the 1976 album Station to Station?
The Thin White Duke
The Thin White Duke fronted Station to Station, made in Los Angeles at the depth of Bowie's cocaine use; he later said he could remember almost nothing about recording it.
Q 19In The Man Who Fell to Earth, Bowie's alien comes to Earth seeking what for his dying planet?
Water
Water: Thomas Newton grows rich on alien patents to pay for a ship that could carry it home to his drought-stricken world, but drink and his captors leave him stranded on Earth.
Q 20Which Iggy Pop song, co-written by Bowie, did Bowie re-record for Let's Dance?
China Girl
China Girl first appeared on Iggy Pop's 1977 album The Idiot; Bowie's 1983 hit version reached UK number two and earned his co-writer a windfall of badly needed royalties.
Bing Crosby taped it with Bowie in September 1977 after Bowie balked at singing Little Drummer Boy, so the show's writers composed the Peace on Earth counter-melody in about an hour; Crosby died weeks later.
Q 24Which composer based three of his symphonies on Bowie's Berlin albums?
Philip Glass
Philip Glass wrote the first two in the 1990s and had discussed the third with Bowie, but completed the set only in 2019, three years after his friend's death.
Q 25Bowie narrated a 1978 recording of which classical work?
Peter and the Wolf
Peter and the Wolf fell to Bowie after Alec Guinness and Peter Ustinov turned RCA down; he is said to have recorded it as a Christmas present for his young son.
Q 26Bowie recruited regulars from which London club, including Steve Strange, for the Ashes to Ashes video?
Blitz
Blitz: Bowie turned up at the Covent Garden club night in 1980 and took Steve Strange and three other regulars to appear in the Ashes to Ashes video, a day's shoot that earned each of them £50.
Q 27Which title role did Bowie play on Broadway in 1980?
The Elephant Man
The Elephant Man: Bowie took over as John Merrick at the Booth Theatre in late 1980 and wore no stage make-up, suggesting the man's deformity through posture alone.
Q 28Under Pressure grew out of a 1981 jam between Bowie and Queen at which studio?
Mountain, Montreux
Mountain, Montreux: Bowie dropped in at the studio Queen owned to sing backing vocals on another of their songs; that part was scrapped, and the jam that followed became a UK number one.
Q 29Which rapper had to settle with Bowie and Queen for sampling Under Pressure uncredited?
Vanilla Ice
Vanilla Ice at first insisted the Ice Ice Baby bassline was different because he had added one beat, then settled out of court and gave Bowie and Queen songwriting credits.
Q 30Who co-produced Let's Dance, Bowie's biggest commercial success?
Nile Rodgers
Nile Rodgers of Chic heard the title track as a folk-style demo and rearranged it into a dance hit; the album he co-produced became the biggest seller of Bowie's career.