I cannot say I was consciously a Bowie superfan, simply that I was aware of his cosmic presence and his work had my instinctive respect, as Simon Pegg noted in a tweet:
“the world is 4.543 billion years old and you somehow managed to exist at the same time as David Bowie.”
Bowie permeated our time in a way I never appreciated before his death, and in a way I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to come to terms with. Radio 6 did a wonderful job of celebrating his life’s work that morning. They curated a request list of hours of his music that went from every classic I never realised I knew so well, to hidden gems that all had such narratives and meaning behind them I was choked with tears many times.
The impact he had, on so many and in truly profound ways is a legacy I doubt we will ever see again. And what really strikes me about it all is that faced with his mortality he chose to spend his final months adding to that legacy. Creating a piece of art that stands equally with everything he had created before; something dark, beautiful, interesting and new. This was on his terms and no others, just as he sings in Lazarus:
This way or no way, you know, I’ll be free, Just like that bluebird, Now, ain’t that just like me?
A lot is said of his ability to reinvent, but hand in hand with that is his inability to retread. His art changed and evolved over the years, sometimes sharply and suddenly, but it never stood still. I do not think there is an artist of popular culture capable of having the same resonance through a life’s journey – certainly no Beatle or Stone could, maybe a Sprinsteen… or maybe Beyoncé in 30 years.
Also:
Thank you David.