There are going to be a lot of pieces written today and most of them will come with more personal insight, fandom or knowledge than I can ever bring, but I wanted to give an insight to the level of his impact to our world from a non-fan, from someone who never really understood the vast majority of his work… I know, shame on me. I hope you find it as confusing as I do that I feel the need to write down how I feel and the need to grieve and mourn the loss of this incredible artist.
David Bowie was a simply that, and incredible artist. An artist who lived at a level that is rare in humanity. He wasn’t just a singer; he was a songwriter, a producer, a dancer, an actor… He was theatre in the best possible way. He was nothing more than an artist. Every performance he made, every piece he wrote, was just delivered on his own terms and for no other reason than to have that art freed from a mere mortal constraint.
The world needs more people live David Bowie.
I’m 42, I wasn’t aware of the whole 70’s thing at the time, I visited it in the 80’s and 90’s and I remember being amazed at the level of sheer genius that was so freely available to us within a mere record. I didn’t understand it, but I could see it, I saw it in the dedication of some of my friends who totally understood it on a deeply personal level (in a way today I am mourning for their loss as I can feel it coming from them even through social media), I can’t think of many people who provide that level of love and dedication from strangers whilst deliberately changing himself at every opportunity, almost daring those people to leave him behind and then follow him again. When I think of him, I think of the Goblin King, dancing with Mick Jagger in the headlights, singing Under Pressure with Annie Lennox, looking at me from countless record covers, videos, posters and making me feel like I was falling into something I didn’t understand.
The world needs more people like David Bowie.
Any person who can inspire so much love and emotion from sharing their art is a genius, and I hope that if you should read this one day, you’ll join me in wishing this giant of a man safe travels into the next stage of his incredible being. The journey into our memories. As an imprint of art into humanity that I hope lives in our consciousness as long as any other legend. Whether that be Rhembrandt, Mozart, Chaplin or Sinatra, we should feel lucky that he chose to share it with us, allowing us to rejoice in his freedom of expression of love and life.
The world needs more people like David Bowie.
Today the colour has been turned down, it’s all looking slightly more monotone out there today. Although I fully expect someone far more qualified to share his music than I will be horrified by my choice of song, I simply have to chose this one. Originally just a song under construction, destined to be an album filler it was at best going absolutely nowhere. There to sing backing on another song, Bowie wrote with them to gave it direction and took it to a place that touches me deeply every time I hear it. My favourite collaboration between two independently enormous artists, it’s just art.
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The world needs more people like David Bowie… Our only solace is that I believe the world to be almost 5 billion years old and has another 5 billion or so to go and we were here the same time he was.