It’s weird the way you find out about things these days. Sitting on the bus this morning, idly looking through Twitter, I see one or two comments about classic Bowie albums and I think nothing of it. And then I see one or two more talking about his career and influence in a wider sense in a way that all felt very epitaph-y, and suddenly I’m thinking “uh-oh”. And so it was with an impending sense of dread that I searched the trending topics, already aware of the news before I had even read the words…
My brother was big into him when I was a kid, I owe him for that introduction (and Prince too, and Talking Heads), but it took me a while, too long. It blew my mind when I eventually got around to listening to the Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust for the first time by myself as an adult to find that, not only did I know every song from hearing them blasted out of my brother’s room years before, but I loved them like best friends I never knew I had. So many facets of his enduring genius will be considered over the coming days by people far more qualified than I. One thing I haven’t seen discussed that much so far: his voice was truly one of the most unique and powerful instruments I’ve ever had the good fortune to feast my ears on. “And the shame was on the other side…” or “Ain’t there one damn song that can make me break down and cry?” – chills down my spine, every time.
Joe Strummer is currently the only other one in my adult life that I can think of whose passing hit me like this. Some didn’t move me in quite the same way either musically or otherwise, while others I was too young for and they were gone before I’d had the chance to properly get to know their music in a meaningful way. One of this latter group, Phil Lynott, once wrote a song about Elvis Presley’s passing that seems apt: “It was a rainy night, the night the king went down/ Everybody was crying it seemed, like sadness had surrounded the town/ Me I went to the liquor store and I bought a bottle of wine and a bottle of gin/ I played his records all night, drinking with a close, close friend”.
I think I might do likewise. R.I.P. to a musical colossus, a true legend.
