With the uploading of this video there remains only two other songs from The Man Who Sold The World album I have yet to do: "Running Gun Blues" and "Black Mountain Rock." What is "She Shook Me Cold" about? That's rather simple as are the lyrics and title. It is raw and highly-charged sex ... apparently the kind that results in a mild state of shock (a sense of being cold afterwards). According to Wikipedia: "The lyrics are about a heterosexual encounter with references to oral sex."
Musically there is a lot to this. The opening riff by Mick Ronson is an homage to Jimi Hendrix's "Voodoo Child." The lead solo is his tribute to Cream for which he encouraged bassist Tony Visconti to listen to Jack Bruce’s bass playing on Cream tracks. Bowie was absent from much of the jam sessions in the song's development, enjoying his time as a happy newlywed. The band had only a very rough draft of the lyrics and chord progressions to work with until he finally joined in on the fun. When he entered the studio to practice the vocal, it was also to offer what some consider to be ridiculously, but intentionally, bad sex lyrics. That tongue placed firmly in his cheek was part of the "oral sex" I suppose. Anyway, this otherwise smashing song was about as close to being heavy metal that Bowie ever got. My video is reasonably tame ... considering the subject matter.
Dorothea Towles was the first African-American model in the 1950′s to walk the runways for haute couture houses in Paris. She worked for designer names such as Christian Dior, as well as Elsa Schiaparelli in the early 50′s. Recalling her experience in Paris of the early 1950s in a 2004 interview for Women's Wear Daily: "For once I was not considered black, African American or Negro. I was just an American." The French fashion establishment "treated you like a queen," she said.