DAVID Bowie didn’t just die. He performed his greatest work by including us all in the science-fiction spectacle that was his passing.
The Thin White Duke is, was and always will be synonymous with the word style. His profound influence on the world of music, fashion and sexuality will never again be felt in the same way. A part of me feels jealousy for those growing up in the 70’s and 80’s who witnessed him at his mesmerising best, but also a twinge of sadness, as they recognise that no other generation will understand what it meant to live life at the same time as Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane.
Eighteen months ago, Bowie learned that he was going to die after being diagnosed with a terminal form of cancer. And in true Bowie fashion, he set about his death like a playwright, dipping his feathered quill into a dark pool of ink, scratching the final scene of his life onto a crisp piece of parchment.
That quill offered us our final gift from a music legend. Blackstar was Bowie’s last album, and with it only being released three days before his untimely death, it may be his greatest.
With his first major record being Space Oddity and his last being Lazarus, he took us with him on the space adventure that was his life. In Blackstar, as the glittering, jewel-encrusted skull of the dead spaceman stunningly signifies the end of Major Tom, it is easy to see through that logic, that it was also the end of Bowie. In his final music video, we watched as he levitated from his death bed, indicative of the way that his tale will transcend his death. In the closing seconds of the scene, we see that skull once again on the table at the end of his hospital bed. In the circular narrative that was his life, Bowie played his final act beautifully. His final record was a carefully composed goodbye to us all.
His final album Blackstar is also well documented as a way people describe a cancerous mound. In true style, Bowie used this harbinger of death as a stage upon which to play his last fictional epic.
Bowie drew on the influences of fantasy and Sci-fi in order to construct inimitable personas. But it was these personas that allowed us to peer into the brilliance of the man. Living life in various guises meant he could target the crumbling world around him and fashion it into one of acceptance. His influence and will were so strong, that he drafted cultural and social progression in a time of football hooliganism and racial trauma. His brilliance was a vehicle of social change.
Just think, without Ziggy Stardust, how would the peculiar, the isolated and the confused know that they weren’t alone? Without anyone there to rip up the rules of what it meant to be, how could society be unique, adapt and fight off the stench of stagnation? Without the music videos for ‘Ashes to Ashes’ and ‘Fashion’, how would directors grow the balls to show off their eccentric creations. Without his influence, popular culture would never be the same. David Bowie was a master of breaking convention and forever spent his life swimming against the current of decided normality, even till his last days.
I read a beautiful quote the other day which succinctly puts into words what I’ve been trying to say in this entire article.
“If you’re ever sad, just remember the world is 4.543 billion years old and you somehow managed to exist at the same time as David Bowie.”
His battle with cancer may have taken him from the world, but he still lives on. With his passing, his legend will live on into forever.
We all now know, there’s a star man waiting in the sky…
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