Goodbye Spaceboy

The fog is so thick outside my window I can hardly see the trees on the other side of the path. But it seems fitting to have the fog obscuring the world on a day like today. 

As I was preparing my daughter for her first daycare day of the year, while simultaneously preparing myself for the meeting I’ve been dreading for a few days now, I saw the news.

David Bowie is dead.

While others posted news articles and comments about his demise all I could muster up was a tiny little “nooo” with a few more o’s perhaps. I trudged off with my daughter to daycare, she happily bouncing, speaking of the melting ice and of the puddles.

Later I sat in the car doing my best to ignore the sounds of Major Tom sitting in his tin can. I had my meeting and I got the bad news I was expecting and then I headed home again, to work.

Tears running down my cheeks.

I remember listening to Bowie since I was very young and I always liked him, but the real thrill of his music didn’t hit me until I saw him live in Reykjavik. I believe it was 1996 and he was touring to promote his 1. Outside album.

His best album ever, if you ask me. Maybe my favourite album of all times.  I’m still thankful to the person who made me go see that concert. Not only did I completely fall in love with the album, but got a new respect for the danceability of the song Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps).

Afterwards I listened to the 1. Outside album about a gazillion times. It was in my mind all the time. And I’m still not quite sure what it was that captured me so completely, but the story that all the songs of the album seem to tell me is a story so compelling that I’ve tried again and again to form words to explain it, but my words fall short.

It was one of the more profound music experiences of my life so far, and as music experiences go – it’s completely impossible to describe the fascination. It’s just there, alive, telling you something about the world and about you and about the people who live in it.

Another thing I always liked about Bowie was the attitude of freedom he always seemed to express. He was who he wanted to be. He wore the clothes he liked and the image of his sexuality or bisexuality seemed to make these things light-hearted and alright during times it might otherwise have been quite hard.

Bowie was never an artist I thought was easy to listen to. It’s always required a lot of me to listen to him, or maybe it’s a certain kind of mood that is required to listen to his music. And sometimes a few glasses of wine.

The news of today may color this month dark, it’s easy to color January in darkest colors as the sunlight is absent a lot of the time, rendering the world in grey, dark colors an the mist we’re having this year elevates that mood. I’ll remember this as The Misty Winter, but I refuse to color my January dark.

So when the lemons start drifting onto our shores what else can people do than make lemonade of them and focus on the good points?

Today I’m listening to Bowie’s 1. Outside. You’ll find me working to Ramona and her friends and I’ll be dancing to the Super Creeps. There is so much more great music in his artillery and I still haven’t had the chance to listen to his new album, which I hear good things about. And it thrills me that even in his battle with that awful disease he still found a way to express himself through music.

And I’m so thankful for that. It gives me hope!

Goodbye Spaceboy,
May moondust cover you,
I hope you are free now.