David Bowie (1947 – 2016)
I often think that the word “cool” in the dictionary should have a picture of Neil Young. He has always been (for me) the personification of “cool”—as well as a huge influence on my guitar playing.
But anytime I’ve ever heard the cliché “…way ahead of their time“, the first person / artist that always came to my mind was David Bowie. I also now think that his picture can be included along with Neil Young’s, under ‘cool’.
One of my earliest memories of him was age 15. I had JUST bought Ziggy Stardust, but within days I was convalescing in the hospital after I had an emergency appendectomy. I remember thinking how much I couldn’t wait to get out of there because I was jonesing to listen to my (then) newest album. And that’s exactly what I did when I got back home after those 6 days in the hospital… play Ziggy Stardust on decibel 40 (or “10” on my Panasonic stereo), to the consternation of the woman downstairs who owned our two-family house in East Rockaway, NY.
One of my last resonating memories of him—was at the 9/11 benefit Concert for New York, performing his rendition of Simon and Garfunkel’s America. With all of the musical instruments there at his disposal, he simply walked out to center stage with just a child’s tiny Casio piano (spanning all of one octave), sat down cross-legged position on the stage, and began tapping one or two keys while covering America. Vintage, creative, re-inventive Bowie. (I have since heard that – that piano he brought out was his daughter’s, but I don’t know if that’s true).
I will miss him, but I like a quote from a columnist for “The Guardian”—Suzanne Moore: “My David Bowie is not dead. Nor ever can be. What he gave to me is forever mine because he formed me. I have absolute clarity about that.” I agree. His consciousness simply went back to the Source where it came from. Hopefully to be tapped, or drawn from—by the future souls of “The Man (and Women) Who Fall to Earth”.
from Starman (1972)
There’s a starman waiting in the sky
He’d like to come and meet us
But he thinks he’d blow our minds
There’s a starman waiting in the sky
He’s told us not to blow it
‘Cause he knows it’s all worthwhile
He told me
Let the children lose it
Let the children use it
Let all the children boogie.
