The Bowieverse seems divided on the merits of Rebel Rebel, with some finding it a bit of a throwaway single, but I’ve always loved it.

Especially that guitar riff – the very essence of Glam – which sounded so unnaturally LOUD when the single came out in February 1974. And that bit: “HOT TRAMP… I love you so.”

It was all the more welcome as Bowie had “retired” a year earlier and returned only to make an album of cover versions, so it was thrilling to find he was back writing and performing his own songs, albeit without his backing band the Spiders.

Originally planned for an aborted Ziggy Stardust musical, Rebel Rebel was the first single from what would become his next studio album, Diamond Dogs, a loosely conceptual affair inspired by both William S Burroughs and George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four.

It’s a bit of a throwback to earlier rockier tunes off Ziggy (Suffragette City, Moonage Daydream), with Bowie playing that memorable guitar riff himself, backed by another guitarist, Alan Parker, plus Herbie Flowers on bass, Mike Garson on piano and Aynsley Dunbar on drums .

The gender-bending lyric – “Got your mother in a whirl / She’s not sure if you’re a boy or a girl” – seemed daringly transgressive to me. I’m sure it must have meant a lot to any young teens going through a crisis of sexual identity or orientation at the time.

Offering tacit support, Bowie has never looked – or dressed – camper than in this mimed clip from a Dutch TV, pretending to play the guitar in his satin and tat (and eye patch) – a new look prompted by conjunctivitis. “I made the most of it and dressed like a pirate,” he explained later. “Just stopped short of the parrot!”

After this one-off performance, recorded on Valentine’s Day, he abandoned Glam for good in favour of a new style with double-breasted suits and floppy swept-back hair. So this is effectively the last public appearance of Aladdin Sane.

It’s worth watching to the end when he shares a toast with the Dutch presenter and we catch a glimpse of the cute blond toddler who will grow up to become film director Duncan Jones (aka ‘Zowie Bowie’).

How could they know?