Bowie Revisited

Bowie Revisited
or portrait of the artist as a dying man


I wrote a separate post on David Bowie's Blackstar shortly before news of his death.  Looking back, I have a new-found appreciation for this record. It plays as a sort of musical last will, as he clearly knows he is dying. I guess I wouldn’t expect that to be his most exciting work. But it is remarkable artistically, to have a portrait of an artist as a dying man. Richard Feynman died at age 69 of cancer. His last words are reported to have been “I would hate to die twice, it’s so boring.”

It seems plausible that a musician would think “I’m dying, I should share the experience with the world.” I can imagine someone coming up with that idea. But then to muster the strength to pull it off, to write, produce and record an album from one’s death bed, and then to pull off the timing to actually die within days of its public release.. well, that takes someone like David Bowie. For Bowie, art, music, and life were always intertwined.. so too with death. “Isn’t that just like me?”

It goes against the basic spunk rock principles such as the idea that music can make me feel young, excited to be alive. Bowie has gone there in the past. But here he is at the end of the journey, at a stage which is, like it or not, part of life. He looks into the big goodbye and gives us a glimpse of what he sees.