The importance of Iggy Pop's influence on Bowie (and vice-versa) during this period cannot be underestimated and they have been regular contributors to each other's work up to the 'Blah Blah Blah' album in 1985. Iggy Pop had been in a much worse state than Bowie and had gone so far as to admit himself to a psychiatric hospital in Los Angeles where Bowie was a regular visitor. Bowie's admiration for Iggy Pop's work dated from the late sixties (the early Stooges albums) and in 1973 he had attempted to sort out the 'Raw Power' album for RCA. At the beginning of 1975 he had come to help out with some production work on some then unreleased tracks being made with James Williamson. When Bowie returned to Los Angeles in February 1976 on his American tour he invited a healthy, much-improved Iggy Pop to be his travelling companion for the rest of the tour. At the same he used his influence with RCA to negotiate a recording contract for Iggy.
At the end of the tour in May 1976 and after a short holiday at Bowie's new home in Switzerland the pair travelled to France to start recording what would later become the 'Idiot ' album. This album is almost a complete Bowie album since he co-wrote every track and was responsible for all the arrangements and production. On top of this he contributes keyboards, guitar, backing vocals and some saxaphone. Many of the songs on 'The Idiot' deal with topics that Bowie would later cover on his own 'Low' album and much of the studio technique was worked out here that made 'Low' so distinctive.
One of the songs 'China Girl' is now much better known as a hit single for Bowie in 1983 but most fans consider that the original version is far superior. The lyric is probably Bowie's, lines such as "I stumbled into town, just like a sacred cow, visions of swastikas in my head and plans for everyone" can only be a reference to his arrival at Victoria station in May 1976 when he was pictured given a right-armed salute. 'Nightclubbing' is a song inspired by the nightlife of Berlin when they moved there for the first time in the autumn of 1976 and could almost be an answer to Kraftwerk's song 'Trans-Europe Express' being set against a mechanical beat like those being pioneered by the Dusseldorf group at that time. Bowie had long been an admirer of their music and had used it before his shows on the 1976 tour. At the time Bowie said of Kraftwerk "I like them very much as people. The whole cold emotion/warm emotion bit. I responded to that". Doubtless the influence of these cold emotions ended up on the 'Low' album.
'Sister Midnight' is another song close to Bowie's heart - it was the first song he had co-written with Iggy Pop (and Carlos Alomar) and was featured in a different version (under the title 'Red Money') on the 'Lodger' album in 1979. The title track of the 'Tonight' album in 1984 means that Bowie has now re-worked four of the songs on 'The Idiot' for his own purposes.
The two went on tour together in early 1977 to promote 'The Idiot' in both Europe and America and then went back to Berlin to make the 'Lust For Life' album - a piece of work that exorcised Iggy's past in much the same way that 'Heroes' did for Bowie. On the tour Bowie took an extremely low profile playing keyboards behind the band - supporting Iggy not just in a musical sense but also in a psychological sense. It seems that the lives and work of the two ran in parallel for eighteen months or so. Unfortunately Iggy Pop's subsequent work has failed to meet the heights of 'Lust For Life' with the exceptions of 'New Values' and 'Blah Blah Blah' .p's subsequent work has failed to meet the heights of 'Lust For Life' with the exceptions of