In Memoriam- R.I.P. David Bowie

David Bowie: January 8, 1947 - January 10, 2016

On January 10, 2016 singer, song-writer, multi-instrumentalist, arranger, producer, painter, actor, and all around entertainer David Robert Jones/aka David Bowie (at the age of 69) unfortunately lost his eighteen month long battle with liver cancer. He is survived by his wife Iman, and his son Duncan Jones.

I think the stars in the endless night sky look very different today, for the one and only Ziggy Stardust now stands among them forever in time.

A veritable legend has come and gone from this world, and in the wake of his passing, one can only ponder on the meaning of his words, and his works.

I make no bones about it, I've always been big on music, and I've certainly always been cool on Bowie. His music was never a stranger in my parent's household, so you can bet your Spiders from Mars I grew up wearing my red shoes and dancing the blues. Few musicians can honestly ever hope to be only half as impacting in the height of their careers as David Bowie was throughout his whole life, and frankly the creative ether of Earth is now the poorer for having lost this mythic monolith.

David Bowie had twenty-eight studio albums produced to his name over the course of his storied forty year career. Chances are that if you don't even know who David Bowie is/was, you've more than likely at least heard one or two of his songs in some capacity or another. Hell, despite his struggles with cancer, the man literally just kicked out one more album (Blackstar) just mere months away from his mortal demise. This guy was truly a dedicated artist through and through, who never stopped working his craft to the best of his (seemingly almost endless) abilities.

Belgian theater director Ivo van Hove (who was working with Bowie on his Off-Broadway musical Lazarus) described the experience of working with David Bowie as "A man still writhing on his deathbed. A man still fighting. He fought like a lion, and kept working like a lion through it all." Reading that statement I think succinctly sums up Bowie quite nicely. An artist who never stopped challenging himself, and never stopped creating. Despite whatever your personal opinion of David Bowie may be, you've gotta at least give credit where it's due.

And just to clarify, when I say that Bowie's work has had an impact on pop-culture at large, I mean it in every syllable of that sentence. From books, to movies, to other musician's works, to videogames, there is seldom a place on the ever fluctuating zeitgeist doll that Bowie hasn't touched intimately. For instance, the animated television show The Venture Bros. is practically one giant love-letter to David Bowie and his work, if you know what you're looking at. The episode Ghost of the Sargasso literally uses several of the lyrics to Bowie's hit songs 'Space Oddity' and 'Ashes to Ashes' as character dialogue that is a master-stroke in referential comedy writing if nothing else. The highly successful gaming franchise, Metal Gear Solid, unabashedly references Bowie's work whenever it can, and did so in a big way with its most recent title (MGS5: The Phantom Pain) by using the name Diamond Dogs directly. One of my all-time favorite movies, Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain, is essentially built on referencing his Space Oddity trilogy of songs and specifically the character of Major Tom. I could go on and on with how Bowie has influenced seemingly everything around us, but we'd essentially be here forever if I did that.

Even though David Bowie is feeling very still, I think the world that is our collective spaceship knows which way to go with the aftermath. In this solemn moment of loss, I personally feel it is imperative for us to remember everything Bowie's work was and represented. He sang a message of thoughtfulness, exploration, acceptance, and most importantly love. No matter who we consider ourselves to be, no matter where we go in life, no matter how we end up, David Bowie wanted us all to remember that we need love and acceptance in this world. As I bring the writing of this post to a close, I can't help but think of the lyrics he helped write with the late/great Freddie Mercury:

 

'Cause love's such an old-fashioned word
And love dares you to care for
The people on the edge of the night
And love dares you to change our way of
Caring about ourselves
This is our last dance
This is our last dance
This is ourselves
Under pressure'

"The truth, is of course, is that there is no journey. We are arriving and departing all at the same time." - David Bowie