Looking for water

 

Well I lost God in a New York minute

Don’t know about you, but my heart’s not in it.

Bowie, Looking for water.

 

Now that the initial shock has worn off a little, I’m beginning to remember just why the man meant so much to me. The first time I ever heard Bowie, I couldn’t have been more than six years old. They were talking about the moon landings on the radio (a subject I was intensely interested in) and they played a bit of Space Oddity as part of the broadcast. It must have made some kind of impact on me because I can still remember it after all these years.

A couple of years later, my family moved to the UK for a time and it was there I heard him on the radio again (though, I’m not sure I even realized it was the same guy). This time, the tune was far more appealing to my juvenile ears. The song was the interminable Laughing Gnome which, for reasons best known to themselves, the BBC were playing constantly that summer. Though I despise that track now (Bowie, I’m certain, would agree), I think I really dug it at the time.

Throughout the 70s, Bowie’s music popped in and out of my life. I wasn’t quite musically developed enough to appreciate all of it, but songs like “Heroes” and Starman certainly left their marks.

1980’s arrival brought many ch-ch-changes for me (sorry).

That year, Bowie’s Scary Monsters album was in the charts. And I was playing it on repeat pretty much non-stop. It was the most atmospheric and otherworldly thing I’d ever heard. I understood about one tenth of it, but it became the soundtrack of my late teenage years and was the launching pad for my lifelong obsession with the Thin White Duke; something for which I will forever be thankful.

I know there were many, many fine Bowie albums prior to Scary Monsters, but that record came along just at the time I was ready to appreciate it. I had simply been too young for Ziggy or Diamond Dogs or any of the Berlin triptych, but when Ashes to Ashes hit the airwaves, I was so very ready.

Through the 80s, my passion for Bowie’s music only grew more intense. By ’86, I was so keen to emulate my idol that, like so many other Bowie disciples before me, I formed a band of my own. As groups go, we were a fairly disparate bunch of individuals. Literally, the only thing we all shared in common was an unshakeable conviction that Bowie was the leading edge of modern Rock ‘n’ Roll.

That conviction was nearly shaken for me by his Glass Spider tour which I saw in Sydney. There had been so many great Bowie tours I should have seen; this was not one of them. Simultaneously overproduced and under cooked, it was Bowie at the nadir of his musical powers.

I lost track of him during most of the 90s; busy with family responsibilities and the dubious joys of home ownership. When all of that fell in a heap (we’ll just fast forward past that bit if that’s OK), I started to make my way back to Bowie.

In 2003, my mother was diagnosed with cancer and, within the year passed away. This was a very difficult time for me for many reasons a bit too personal to go into here. Suffice it to say that, for many months, I was lost.

There had only ever been one human being in the world who had loved me unconditionally and that person was now gone. This fact had me questioning a great many things in my life that I’d thought I had been sure about.

In fact, all I seemed to have were questions; questions and pitifully few answers. I didn’t even know how to grieve properly. In short, I was a mess (and not the hot kind I keep hearing about).

And then, one evening, on my way home from work, I stopped in at a discount CD place I’d always meant to check out. As I browsed, I came upon their extensive Bowie section. They had every album I remembered plus a whole lot I’d never even heard of. It turns out Mr. Bowie had been quite a busy boy in the 90s.

All the albums were ten bucks and I walked out of there with his entire back catalogue – which still represented a considerable outlay that I was keenly aware I was going to have to explain when I got home. I can’t say why I did that. It was a strange and impulsive thing for me to do, but there was something inside telling me some of the answers I sought might just be hidden away in this stack of CDs.

I don’t know why I thought that, but it turned out to be true, because, after a few months of working through the albums, I came upon a track on Heathen that unlocked a very special door for me.

Everyone Says Hi is a deceptively cheery little ditty which belies its own true nature. Couched in almost mundane language, the song deals with Bowie’s feelings about his brother’s suicide some years earlier.

Said you took a big trip
They said you moved away
Happened oh, so quietly
They say

From the opening bars, I could feel the tears welling up. And by the time I got to –

Don’t stay in a sad place
Where they don’t care how you are
Everyone says, “Hi”

-I was sobbing like a fool.

And this happened every single time I heard it. I was turning into Pavlov’s dog’s pet monkey – which was a good thing. I’d been struggling with my grief for far too long and, at last, I was able to let it out in a controlled way.

I finally began to heal that day and found the way forward. This was David Bowie’s gift to me.

And then, Bowie came back to Australia. The Reality tour (sadly the very last he would ever do) was everything the Glass Spider tour was not. I went to see him here in Melbourne and it was such a great show. Here’s a snippet from it:

To top it off, my favourite Melbourne band Something for Kate was the support.

Bowie’s band were superb and the man himself personable, relaxed and singing up a storm. I’m so happy I saw him again. That night is my abiding memory of him – bittersweet now.

I hope I’ve managed to convey here, in some small way at least, the impact that Bowie’s music has had on my life.

I know it’s only Rock ‘n’ Roll, but Vive le Rock.

Godspeed Starman.

©2016