I woke up on the 8th January and groggily heard an announcement on my parents’ TV about the death of a celebrity. Asking them who’d died, still blinking the sleep from my eyes, my dad announced just one word – “Bowie.” Not so much a name, I’ve come to realize, but a word. A word which symbolized a pioneer of Glam Rock, an inspiration to an entire generation, an influence in the worlds of art, music and fashion alike. David Bowie’s track record is one which I always pictured as full of vibrancy, dynamism and colour. He honed the skill of evolution, creating and recreating time and time again, and rarely going wrong – how could he? Music has no rules; it has no boundaries, much as artists nowadays fail to realize as they steadily become carbon copies of one another – he played this to his advantage, shocking many and inspiring many more. I can’t possibly go into the entirety of his musical catalogue, and definitely can’t do it justice, but I’ve picked a few of my favourite Bowie songs to try and illustrate my point.
Space Oddity gives off an odd sense of foreboding to me. Combined with a theme of space travel that I equate with ELO, the music is very intricate, but gradually dissolves into disarray towards the end. It’s not an unpleasant sound, merely strange. If I were my age back in 1969 and I heard that song for the first time, it would certainly give me the sense that something big was to be expected from Bowie. Something which hadn’t been seen or heard before.
If I was ever asked to describe his music in one word, I guess I’d always say that it’s weird. Good Weird though, not Bad Weird. The closest I came when I was younger to thinking some of his work was Bad Weird was when I heard Life on Mars? This is probably the weirdest of all Bowie’s songs to me due to a combination of watching the music video and not being old enough to understand why he had florescent orange hair and bright blue eye shadow, and what on earth was he saying? I never understood the song, but it always came across as slightly intimidating to me. Perhaps because whenever I heard it, I knew that it was that song, that song which never made sense but gave off an eerie feeling of otherness, a surreal quality which I found slightly unnerving. It carries a weight, a status, it demands to be listened to. It’s a combination of melancholy and nostalgia, the rude realization that life isn’t how you expect it to be as a child, but that the life that you think could lead exists somewhere out there, the life you’re desperate to find but somehow can’t.
Starman is one of my two favourite Bowie songs. It’s the song I remember hearing most, the one I knew the most before any other. It’s also the song I listened to on repeat the day that he died, when a good friend sat next to me as I cried, and the meaning of the song suddenly took on a whole new dimension. The song itself is very well arranged, due to the extreme musical talent of Mick Ronson, but it’s always been difficult for me to escape the sadness I feel whenever I hear it, something which has only become more prominent after his death.
I realise this has been a bit soul-destroying so far, so the next song I picked was Fashion, purely because I love it and it’s so catchy. The snappy guitar riff was an appropriate introduction for Bowie’s next phase, one reflecting the animation and pizazz of the 80s. It’s also an accurate social commentary at the beginning of a decade which did pay such close attention to appearances. It’s not particularly deep or meaningful, but it’s difficult not to get the guitar riff stuck in your head.
Let’s Dance is probably the most-played Bowie song, at least in my experience. One particular line always stood out for me – “if you should fall into my arms/and tremble like a flower” – I’ve always thought that this particular line is very emotive, vivid in it’s imagery. The fact that it was conceived as a folk song before Nile Rogers got his hands on it is faintly hysterical though, just because I literally can’t imagine what that would sound like. The power of a guitar riff…
I love Absolute Beginners because it appears as less abstract and more of an Actual Song. The melody has always reminded me somewhat of the lines of Under Pressure – “This is our last dance…” versus “If our love could fly over mountains…” Combined with the haunting saxophone part, the song is quietly vulnerable – “I absolutely love you/But we’re absolute beginners/With eyes completely open/But nervous all the same”. However, the lyrics quickly replace caution with courage, emboldened by the support and love of that other person. Beginners demonstrates a more emotional side of Bowie’s writing, it’s more realistic in its sentiments. The song shows us a more human Bowie – not the superstar, not the alien, not the Starman, but the human.
The last song I chose to look at is Dancing in the Street, just because it’s absolutely terrible. That’s it. I’ve always found a certain charm in the track’s messiness and I’m fond of it, but overall I really can’t say with any seriousness that it’s actually good.
I’m merely scratching the surface with Bowie’s work. In a way, I feel like I’m not entitled to say any of this, to attempt to analyse his work, to pass judgement as I have done. I wasn’t alive at the height of his fame, I didn’t stand pressed against the edge of the stage at the final performance of Ziggy Stardust and I didn’t witness the rise of each and every new persona. However, as is the case with all music worth its salt, it’s never forgotten and acquires new fans as it continues along the road of musical history. I can only try and articulate my own thoughts and emotions of Bowie’s music from my own limited experience. But let me say this: I may not have been around at the time, but there is no mistaking the sheer impact I feel he had on the world, and my age does not, and will never diminish the impact I felt of his death. Bowie may have been weird, the weirdest artist I’ve ever come across, but definitely, definitely Good Weird.