David Bowie

(Written 12/01/2016)

Everyone else in the world has had their say, so I might as well. The eight o'clock news this morning brought one of those "Whaaaat?" moments. David Bowie can't have died, it's so unlike him.

I once wrote that one of the benefits of age is that I got to see all the good bands. What I didn't write about was how it felt to hear a future classic album for the first time, and what it was like to witness the birth of what could only become a major talent. "Ziggy Stardust" landed on my newly-discovered rock'n'roll world like a shiny gift from some friendly alien civilisation. For some months, it was the coolest LP to carry around the school (we took albums to school with us like people wear badges these days, God knows why, but that's what you did.) Many people today have talked about how Bowie spoke to people who felt they were outside society - in other words, all teenagers - but that wasn't entirely true at the time.

He taught us to be cool, and he let us be freaks. Sociologists (uncool) will explain that all teenagers need to rebel and experiment to find out who they are. Goodness knows how they do that today, but in the first half of the 70's it meant wearing 36 inch flared trousers, a sequined waistcoat from Biba and make-up in public. Or a black trench coat and a black fedora with a large feather in the brim. Or tight jeans tucked into knee-high silver 6 inch platform boots I'll confess to have done all three, and man, it was fun. It was Bowie who opened the door and welcomed us freaks in, though.

"Ziggy" was followed by "Aladdin Sane" with that shocking (at the time, it really was) androgynous inner cover portrait and the lightning flash makeup that I never quite got right when going to teenage parties - by bus. What a freak. Then "Diamond Dogs", with its dystopian post-apocalyptic vision of a spoken word intro ending with the cry every Bowie fan from that generation knew - "This ain't rock'n'roll... this is genocide!" - and a compelling, tearing guitar riff.

That's the thing, though - what you got from David Bowie depended on your generation. If you had The Thin White Duke, you got something different, but no less inspiring. If you got the Berlin period, something else. I didn't care for "Low", "Lodger" or any of the albums from that period, but that was probably because I was getting too old to embrace the new by that time. Thank goodness Bowie never got that old.

I only saw him live once, on the "Station To Station" tour, also known as the "Black and White" tour. All the clothes, all the instruments, all the staging was black or white. All the stage lights were white. Bowie was in the middle of his "soul boy" period, and, despite my having no great love for soul, his performance was mesmerising.

All great art takes some elements from previous works and thrusts it into the future. David Bowie took influences from all over the place, lit the fuse and propelled himself through the decades and the generations. His first hit album, "Space Oddity", was released in the 60's. His final chart-topping album (trust me, it will be), "Blackstar", was released just last Friday. Bowie knew he was terminally ill... and with the song "Lazarus" he even managed to turn his death into a work of art.

God, I'll miss him.

"Will you stay in our lovers' story?
If you stay, you won't be sorry
Because we believe in you.
Soon you'll grow, so take a chance
On a couple of kooks
Hung up on romancing."

"We can be heroes
Just for one day."

From one of the many kooks to one of the very few heroes - fly true, fly free, Starman.