The version of the song used in the video is a slightly remixed version commissioned for the soundtrack for the 1990 film Pretty Woman, and was featured as the main single for Bowie's greatest hits album "Changesbowie." The single release also coincided with the Sound+Vision Tour, which was supposed to be Bowie's last tour featuring his major hits. This declaration turned out to be false as he continued playing his hit singles from 1990 to his final tour in 2003-2004.
The song is the only song by David Bowie to reach #1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100.
After the Young Americans sessions mostly concluded by late 1974, the material was delayed while Bowie extricated himself from his contract with manager Tony Defries. During this time, he was staying in New York City where he met John Lennon. The pair jammed together, leading to a one-day session at Electric Lady Studios in January 1975. There, Carlos Alomar had developed a guitar riff for Bowie's cover of "Footstompin'" by the Flairs, which Bowie thought was "a waste" to give to a cover. Lennon, who was in the studio with them, sang "aim" over the riff, which Bowie turned into "Fame" and he thereafter wrote the rest of the lyrics to the song. Lennon's voice is heard interjecting the falsetto "Fame" throughout the song.
Bowie would later describe the song as "nasty, angry", and fully admitted that it was written "with a degree of malice" aimed at the Mainman management group with whom he had been working at the time. In 1990, Bowie reflected: "I'd had very upsetting management problems and a lot of that was built into the song. I've left all that behind me, now... I think fame itself is not a rewarding thing. The most you can say is that it gets you a seat in restaurants."
Bowie would later claim that he had "absolutely no idea" that the song would do so well as a single, saying "I wouldn't know how to pick a single if it hit me in the face."