True elders and the wisest of teachers don’t ignore the vibrant, insightful youth that come after them. It is nauseatingly common these days to hear many blowhards slamming millennials, etc. for their perceived naivety or ignorance. The problem is, it is equally ignorant or naive for a baby boomer to claim to be able to see the world through the eyes of today’s youth. They don’t. David Bowie didn’t do that. He embraced each generation that came after him. He taught all of us so much, but he always kept an eye and ear open as well to the next generations and the peers all around him. Klaus Nomi, Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, Moby, Pixies, Scott Walker, Marc Bolan, Robert Fripp, Brian Eno, Maria Schneider, Kendrick Lamar… He never stopped looking, listening, encouraging, celebrating others and collaborating. He kept evolving, learning, sharing, creating, thinking and caring. My whole life has been drenched in his influence – how I sing, how I play, how I write, my faith, what I read, my view of love, life and so much more. As a lonely, shy boy who felt so invisible and very out of place in this world, David Bowie gave me a place where I belonged. It was okay to be different – to wonder, to dream, to see things a different way. I still feel as utterly out of place as ever, but his remarkable body of work and that iconic image in my mind of his enthusiastic wonder-filled laughter, that friendly smile and that sparkle in his eye provides me much inspiration, challenge, comfort, encouragement and confidence. There are just so many things in this world that exist because Bowie came first. So much. His legacy is everywhere. We are going to be discovering that for years to come. I can’t think of a single other figure that influenced so much in their time – music, fashion, film, literature, theatre, dance, philosophy, religion… What a loss. What a feast of a life lived fully in all its colourful, creative and visionary glory. To go out so bravely and quietly is an abrupt and shocking ending to a rich and beautiful life. On leaving, he gave this last opus, Blackstar/Lazarus, this ambitious and visionary work to now mourn and celebrate with.
From Blackstar:
“Something happened on the day he died/Spirit rose a metre and stepped aside/Somebody Else took his place and bravely cried/I’m a blackstar, I’m a blackstar”
David Robert Jones, there is no one to take your place. This, simply, is the final chapter in a story that won’t be written again. We will hold this one tightly, share it constantly and read it again and again. Thank you for everything and suffer no more. “We can be heroes forever and ever. What d’you say?”
iseemyblindnessnow 