It says something about the artist David Bowie was that nearly everyone who loves him remembers the first time they heard him sing. For me it was at primary school,
when I was about 8 years old. Our music teacher dragged the ancient
classroom CD player from its lonely cupboard and explained that the time had come for
us to hear some real music. Perhaps I exaggerate. Our music teacher was one of
those people who really should have gone on to become one of
the defining artists of their generation, a dark haired drummer who wore denim
jackets to school and every other lesson gave us a blow-by-blow account of how,
way back in the day, his band had played on the hallowed turf of the Glastonbury
festival. Aside from relaying this frankly dubious anecdote, his lessons largely
consisted of giving our class an education in the music of his youth,
for he was never particularly interested
in teaching us the basics of the recorder and triangle that the curriculum
demanded (the Jack Black in School of Rock impression is completed by his
overseeing the management of my first band's only concert, in which
I played a "keyboard solo" of a C major scale). I am grateful to him now.
So there we were: thirty kids eager to discover
what cultural nugget had been prepared for us today. The music teacher smiled
knowingly as he slipped the CD into the archaic machine. He pressed play. The
song was Space Oddity.
When it was over, someone asked him, reverently, if he
might play it again. This pleased our music teacher. It pleased me too.
Fast forward to November 2015, as the final, demented notes
of Bowie's latest single, Blackstar, draw to a close. It is my first listen.
Throughout this ten minute odyssey, I've been struck by just how much listening
to Blackstar has reminded me of hearing Space Oddity all those years ago. It's
not that the songs sound the same; the storytelling that I loved so much on
Space Oddity-who could forget the sheer horror of the moment Major Tom's
circuit goes dead-has been replaced by cryptic, image-heavy lyrics and jazz-influenced
instrumentation. Instead, what I'm reminded of is how different Space Oddity
sounded from everything I'd ever heard before. Because David Bowie's music still
sounds like nothing else in the world.
That was what had amazed me most, staring in shock at the
old CD player perched neatly on a stool. Nearly forty years after its release, Space
Oddity really did sound like something completely new. I was transfixed. I
think my parents were pleased when I came home talking about David Bowie; my
music taste at the time, which largely consisted of Basshunter's 2006 classic
Now You're Gone and one Muse song I'd heard in the background of Doctor Who Confidential,
had not been kind to their hearing. And so it was that I became Bowie mad,
first through constant exposure to his Best Of album on family drives through
Cornwall, then by watching, reading and listening to everything I could find
concerning the Thin White Duke, Aladdin Sane and Ziggy Stardust. Although Bowie wouldn't
release new music for six or seven years after I first heard his voice and
although I turned up a couple of generations after his original fanbase did, I was in
love. And there was so much to love: the style, the decades-old gossip (did
Bowie sleep with Mick Jagger? His wife seemed to think so), the delicious
humour (the 1964 interview regarding 17-year-old Bowie's formation of the
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Long Haired Men remains, as it was
then, hilarious), and the songs. And what songs they were. The ethereal
Life on Mars, the swagger of Rebel Rebel and Young Americans, the careful,
subtle Wild is the Wind. The Man Who Sold the World. Oh! You Pretty Things.
Starman. Five Years. The rampant, dance floor assault of Suffragette City. The
black-hearted Space Oddity sequel Ashes to Ashes. The sheer catchiness of Sound
and Vision and Let's Dance. Sorrow, Rock 'n' Roll Suicide, Drive-In Saturday, Ziggy Stardust, Fame, Heroes, and the catwalk-strutting
Diamond Dogs. And, later, The Stars (Are Out Tonight), Where Are We Now and
Blackstar. And oh, so many more. Bowie had a near-unique combination of talents for songwriting and experimentation that allowed him to stretch the boundaries of his
sound while still crafting completely perfect songs.
Fast forward two months. David Bowie is dead. I heard the news today, oh boy.
There was a moment of shock when I saw the announcement this
morning, which fell away after some comforting reports claiming
the announcement to be a cruel hoax. But then death was everywhere, and it was
true. When Changes, that most truly perfect track, came on the radio, the sadness was harsh and biting. His was the first music that I had ever loved.
