Reflections on my hero
The first Bowie album I bought was 'Diamond Dogs.' I got it from the local record shop, Oliver's in Ashington. It was just about to close, and they were selling off their remaining stock. The album scared the shit out of me. I'd never heard anything like it, but there was something about the music, something special, strange. Like most of Bowie's stuff it didn't feel of this world. His voice, it was so distinctive. It was the most important album I ever bought.
I used to play it to my girlfriends. Few lasted long. I blame Bowie, he scared them off. I painted my bedroom black, put up dark curtains, and would sit on my bed and listen for hours. Many other albums followed. Starving myself of lunch, and saving up my dinner money for each one in turn. It was the early stuff first, the 70s classics, that run of albums that few have matched for consistent brilliance, creativity, and reinvention. I reckon only Stevie Wonder and early Elton John had the same kind of run, but they were different. Bowie always had something more than music. Every one of those 70s Bowie albums was a treasure absorbing hours of my time. He cost me a small fortune, and at least a few exam grades. He repaid me though, gave me so much more, and kept on giving. He still does. No-one else comes close, or ever will. Who could ever replace Bowie?
I sometimes try to choose my favourite Bowie album or track. You have the discussion with your mates. It’s what we do. We make lists, create hierarchies of value, influence, and greatness. We try to compare, even with the incomparable. It’s impossible with Bowie. You could pick any number, and I do. It used to be only the 70s stuff, plus ‘Scary Monsters.’ There is the occasional classic single after that. ‘Absolute Beginners’ is up there with his best, and ‘The Buddha of Suburbia.’ I think that is often over-looked. Then he released his last two, the final flourish, fearless in the face of death, the ‘Blackstar.’
If I had to single out a track, there is one that I often mention. It’s simply because fewer people have heard it. Bowie left it off ‘Young Americans' despite it being an incredibly powerful and moving song. I think the reason why can be found in the lyrics. They’re naked, open and perhaps reveal more than Bowie wanted. He was plagued with cocaine-fuelled paranoia at the time, had visions of creatures watching him, lived on peppers and milk only.
The song is 'Who Can I Be Now?' It’s a gorgeous track, steeped in the Philadelphia sound of the album it never made it onto. The song is about change. the constant theme in Bowie’s work. The title is a question we should all ask ourselves every day, because if we aren't changing, exploring, taking risks, and moving forward we are dying. Bowie understood this better than any other artist. Of all the gifts he has given me, that is the greatest. It's hard to put into words how much David Bowie means to me. Like so many I was devastated when he died. It was a shock, but it was also perfect Bowie, so beautifully orchestrated. Even in death he was a star. They named a constellation after him. How perfect. Billy Bragg has a theory that Bowie held the Universe together, and everything has been collapsing since his death. The world has changed.
It was moving to see the tributes, how much he touched people’s lives. Whether you loved his music or not something you love was influenced and shaped by Bowie. I hear and see it in so much of popular music. He changed everything. He was a true creative visionary and though the term genius is often over-used, of the few that deserve the title Bowie is one.
How do you deal with that kind of loss, of someone you have never met, but has played such a huge part in your life? Someone who has made you laugh and cry, shaped who you are. I did meet David Bowie once. We were in an arena with a few thousand others, but he sang to me, only me, I'm sure of that. We all are. If life is a gift then so is death. It teaches us that life is precious, shakes us from the mediocre and mundane, it reminds us to live. It helps us reflect on the life of the person we have lost, the special ones even more.
I never knew David Bowie the man, what touched me all those years was the music, the wonderful, magical music. It was the characters and personas, the many different faces. I cried a lot when he died, but I got through it. I found a new beginning, an absolute beginning. Now I celebrate everything I love about Bowie, all that he has given me. When most of us die we will crumble to stardust, only the love will remain. People like Bowie leave so much more. They touch our soul, help us find who we are. That is why the artists, the poets, the musicians are the special ones. Everyone dies, but heroes live forever.
