Where were you then? A tribute to David Bowie

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Some minutes after seven I was still nestled in goose down with one eye on the clock and one ear to the radio, drifting in and out of sleep. Radio Four’s Today programme was giving a lot of air-time to David Bowie’s new album and his old hits. A good start to the week.  I had bought ‘Black Star”only yesterday and loved it. Echoes of ‘Low’ and ‘Station to Station’ I thought, but also something completely new. It was very annoying that both Will Gompertz and David Sillito kept using the past tense in their reports. It was as though they were presenting an obituary.

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Aladdin Sane 1973

Then Nick Robinson confirmed, in a voice that suggested he knew what I was thinking, that it had been officially confirmed that David Bowie had died only twenty minutes ago. I got up instantly. Facebooked, then watched the television as David’s back catalogue was sampled on all breakfast programmes. A parade of tributes from journalists followed, many simultaneously claiming shock at the news, whilst claiming prior personal knowledge of his fatal illness. I guess journalists are quite accomplished in reporting the implausible. A biographer claimed David had deliberately manufactured the time of his own death to maximise media publicity. He was, after all, supernatural and had the powers of magic, she said. Lorraine Kelly, looked on incredulously. So do myths begin and legends made. Meanwhile, Angie Bowie who, only days ago said she only felt sorry for their split because she lost her job, is oblivious to her ex-husband’s demise as she is cooped up in the Celebrity Big Brother House.

My generation mourns the passing of an artist who entranced us while he blazed a trail through the seventies as Ziggy Stardust, then surprised and excited us with every new album and musical turn in subsequent decades. Only a few weeks ago I posted a blog about my musical biographies. I have expanded the piece about David here.

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Aladdin Sane 1973

In July 1972 David Bowie looked straight into our sitting rooms from the Top of the Pops studio and things were never the same again. He was like no-one else we had ever known. An out-of-this world being, at once regal and coquettish, who seduced a generation of teenagers when he pointed directly at us with a flourish of his wrist singing, “so I picked on you-ou-ou” then brazenly hung his arm around lead guitarist, Mick Ronson. The following year Nationwide, the magazine show of middle England, screened a ten minute feature about the Aladdin Sane tour. The reporter employed the same condescending manner that The Beatles had endured ten years before. Like the Beatles, Bowie influenced a generation of musicians and teenagers but he did not have the family-wide appeal of the Merseysiders. We knew the androgynous singer represented something new and edgy but we weren’t quite sure what it was. By now we had more than the weekly Top of the Pops as a means to watch our favourite bands. Producers, such as Granada’s Muriel Young, had created showcase programmes on children’s TV which, with BBC2’s ‘Old Grey Whistle Test’, gave the well-informed viewer the chance to watch the latest pop music from arriving home from school until bedtime.

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I first saw Bowie in his guise as Ziggy Stardust at Preston Guild Hall in the summer of 1973. I had missed the earlier Ziggy Stardust tour and was determined not to miss this one. I still have a vivid memory of that night. After all, when we ran to the front of the concert hall – it was still allowed, if frowned upon, – he looked at me flirtatiously and sang, just to me. After the show, Sheena and I went to the back of the hall to wait for David’s departure. He was driven off in a limousine as we ran down the road after him screaming. We felt we owed him that. Sheena, was triumphant that, against fierce competition – she had the nail scratches as proof –  she had caught the copper ring that he had thrown into the crowd. She wore it constantly for several weeks, until her finger turned green. I used the memory of this in a scene in my novel ‘Deluded’.

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David Bowie and Mick Ronson

The ‘David Is’ exhibition at the V&A in 2013 was a delicious treat. I went twice. I was mesmerised by the original lyrics of Ziggy Stardust, written on ruled paper in David’s hand. The walls of videos transported me back to the exhilaration of the seventies, the flirtatious grin penetrated my soul yet again. Some idols fall, but David’s standing soared when I discovered that he had rejected a knighthood in 2003.

As his music has played throughout to-day on radio and television it seemed as fresh as it had been forty years ago. It has been the soundtrack to my life, as it has for so many others. Every time I have seen him live, I have been overwhelmed by his charisma which has left me reeling. I am glad I played ‘Black Star’ yesterday and appreciated it. Now, I find it too raw, too haunting. It will take some time before I can listen to that album again.

Guilt by Lynn SteinsonFullSizeRender-229x300 Where were you then? A tribute to David Bowie

‘David Is’ Exhibition Catalogue V&A

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About Lynn Steinson

Author of psychological thrillers "Deluded" and "Guilt" about members of The Sun pub quiz team.
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