About a year or so ago my missus asked me to come along to a night out with her friends and partners , to a Bowie tribute gig, ok I said , but I’m not a Bowie fan really, it was a cracking gig and afterwards I said to my missus, I’m not a Bowie fan, but I sang along to every song tonight…
As a young teenager I was a fan of all pop music and always watched Top of the Pops ( as did everyone)…. watched it for years and one moment stands about above all others….Mick Ronson and Bowie, singing together on Star man..Ronson sashays over to Bowie who leans a nonchalant arm on his shoulder…but the thing was , they were a little too close…are they going to .....kiss!!?..( it looks harmless now..and had been referred to on TV and Newspapers today , but trust me it was an Earthquake.) ...it was the talk of the school …I’ve always said it was the moment ( musically ) the sixties ended and the seventies began, even more than seeing my favourite punk groups , it was the single most memorable moment on TOTP.
Bowie was the one who made everyone who felt awkward and different think...its ok..there are cooler people that are different...but saying that everyone seemed to be into Bowie….everyone had a Bowie LP…despite the androgynous look, even the hard lads where Bowie fans…I wasn’t a ‘fan’ but you couldn’t get away from his music….or him…
When Punk/New Wave happened, it was year zero for me and those like me, all the old groups and artists their time was over and were unacceptable to us, but a few where given passes, Lemmy for one…and Bowie?...it wasn’t even in question, from Siouxsie to Joy Division everyone cited Bowie as an influence….I have at home a piece of paper , nearly 40 years old, whereupon the 16 year old FlashingBlade has written my top ten tracks of 1977…everyone a punk classic, bar one…Heroes.
The Berlin years where the best for me , not just his own work but his collaberations..and let me say at this point Heroes despite its ubiquitous use for sporting events and trite backdrop to TV adverts has never lost its power, beauty and otherness …..
I never bought Bowie records, but I bought Iggy Pops ‘the Idiot’..Banshees records…Joy Division records ..Associates records…Human League Records…etc. ..etc.. all citing Bowie as their influence…not the Beatles or the Stones. And it moved on and on …every now and then a new artists….another ‘Bowie’ influenced artist.
Bowie , is and probably will forever be the most significant influential individual popular musical artist Britain , no…. Europe!..has ever produced in the post war years (I don’t include the Beatles as they were a different phenomenon in many ways)…and more than just music he was a cultural Icon.
I have for the past forty years, when the subject came up, said, I was not a ‘Bowie Fan’… I suspect because I had all these othe groups I was passionate about…but Bowie was always there …in the music and culture...Im not a fan of Bowie..Im a product of Bowie. When Heroes came on the car radio this morning, I couldn’t hold back the tears….you have been part of my life for 40 odd years and I didn’t realise it.
Mates in their fifties who have shed tears today over his passing, because he meant so much to them in their youth….but there are those in their forties, thirties, and probably twenties who feel the same, this I feel says everything about his life and career.
Sat in front of the TV watching TOTP all those years ago… thousands of Dad’s ask dumbfounded “ Is that a boy or a girl?”…. Thousands of teenagers reply “ Its Dave Bowie!!”…..Millions around the world will watch the TV today and no one will need to ask is he a boy or a girl…because everyone knows who he is …The Starman... Ziggy Stardust…Alladin Sane…The Thin White Duke…Dave Bowie.
One by one the stars are going out…..