Bowie's My Death

A friend referred to this blog as my flog, with the letter f  representing the word former. A pun well taken, because it has been a while since I regularly updated CasparSongs. Still, it was exactly at the moment when I was working on a new blog. That was when Bowie died. 

The Friday before was the day Bowie had presented his new album: Black Star. I have to say that I can be bit resilient to new work by arrived artists, whose earlier work I loved, because I fear it might spoil it all for me. But, this time I was really intrigued by the dark, electronic soundscapes and Bowie's haunted voice. And as any new release from pop culture phenomenons is accompanied by showing their older work as well, I had a look at the documentary Five Years. That was going to be the subject of the new blog, and that was when Bowie died.

It seems like I struggle to write blogs about the death of artists. Earlier I had this problem when JJ Cale died, and even on Lou Reed, an artist that I admire so much, and one can write bookshelves full of, I couldn't find the right words to say something sensible. That was until Bowie died.

What are sensible things to say when an old rocker dies? You can tell that they lived their lives to the max, at certain moments tthey themselves must have believed that they were immortal. From both Bowie and Reed you can expect that they had said musically, and culturally, what they wanted to. It must have surprised both of them that they even made it until around seventy, after they survived the 27 years itch, a threshold age for many rock stars. With such a life, and such a career, I like to believe one can die in peace. At least, I hope that that was how Bowie died.

So, Caspar, any sensible things to add to the avalanche of reactions we have heard over the past few weeks? Maybe just my personal memories of Bowie and his Music. I first discovered him with his Let's Dance and China Girl in the early eighties, when I was about ten. Later through a cassette tape with the albums Hunky Dory on the A side, and Ziggy Stardust on B, which are still my favourites. And just to sign off with a very personal note. I remember watching the Ziggy Stardust show on the BBC one night. It must have been the only time that I could consider falling for a man; sensual, completely intriguing, brilliant with his three piece band, and with his audience on an emotional string. I simply love the rocking fury in 'Width of a Circle', or the melodramatic version of Jacques Brel's 'My Death', when Bowie ends with the line 'Behind the door there is...' and, well, there is nothing, really, just a cool, British 'thank you'. After something like 25 studio albums, and decades of being a frontrunner in the musical and wider cultural circles, it ends, it really does come to a full stop. And what remains of the man, and really any man, is nothing, just his legacy and a big, big 'thank you'. At least, those were my thoughts, when Bowie died.