A song has to take on character, shape, body and influence people to an extent that they use it for their own devices. It must affect them not just a… - David Bowie

I’m a person who can take on the guises of people I meet. I’m a collector, and I collect personalities and ideas.

The night before flying to New York, I watched Bowie's brief performance as a serene, pragmatic Pontius Pilate in Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ. 'That's a strange movie to watch before going on a plane flight,' Bowie laughs. 'It's like, shall we find out — is there a God?' Then, as if moving on to the next logical topic, Bowie says, 'I can't wait to see the other 10 percent of the Dead Sea Scrolls. They're in fragments, of course, kind of a Bill Burroughs effect...' and he recounts for me a certain conspiracy theory ('a '70s thing') about a secret section of the Dead Sea Scrolls supposedly written by a Jesus who'd escaped from the cross and ended up dying a revolutionary at Masada. This secret stuff is, according to the theory, held in the Vatican and shown only to each new Pope on the day of election. But what on earth, I ask, could the big secret be anyway? 'Oh,' laughs Bowie, 'that there really was a Brian.

And if you say run, I'll run with you
And if you say hide, we'll hide.
Because my love for you
Would break my heart in two.
If you should fall
Into my arms
And tremble like a flower.