Regular readers of my column will have noticed by now that
like Chris Packham on one of the BBC’s seasonal nature watch programmes I do
like to insert some of my favourite song lyrics and titles into my writing when
I think I can get away with it, sometimes even going the whole hog and
re-writing a whole song just to get across the point of whatever subject is
particularly getting on my goat that week.
So it would have been all too easy to start this with any
number of lines from one of this particular artist’s catalogue of amazing
lyrics.
However there are far too many to choose from and whatever I
did write would probably not go anywhere near to explaining just how gutted I
was to find out that David Bowie had passed away after a battle with pancreatic
cancer last Monday.
The first I knew of it was when I happened to glance up at
the TV screen on the Sky stall in the Pentagon to be confronted by a montage of
his music video’s under which ran the yellow breaking news banner “ David Bowie
dies aged 69 “
“No way , that can’t be right , I’ve read that wrong “ was my initial reaction but as I opened up
Facebook on my phone and saw my timeline
filled with sad faces and favourite tracks
I realised I had indeed read it correctly.
Born in the mid 70’s I was a bit young to have experienced him
in his glam rock heyday. My only real recollection of his music as a youngster
being that when I was in primary school one of the classes big numbers for the
school concert was an interpretation of Space Oddity in which the majority of
the class danced round wearing white to represent stars in the night sky as a
lone child in a space helmet stood in the middle playing the part of Major Tom.
However as an awkward teen just beginning to realise that my
taste in music and clothes lay in a different era and a world away from those
of my top 40 and teenybopper loving peers I discovered there was a whole
different side to the singer of Lets dance and star of Absolute Beginners .
In David Bowie I found someone who like myself wasn’t always
comfortable in the person they were so created an alter ego who let them become
the confident person they always wished they could be.
In this guise he spoke up for all those who considered
themselves a kook , a scary monster or a supercreep and let them know it was ok
if you were a bit weird and even that you should embrace it and ultimately if you tired of being one way
there was no shame in reinventing yourself as something completely different .
So thank you for being one of a kind , being unique and
helping all those people who thought they were aliens to believe that they were
pretty things too , David and to end this column I leave it down to this quote
from you .
“I don’t know where I’m going from here but i promise it won’t
be boring “
A brilliant motto we should all take inspiration from to
live every day of our lives to the full.
MEDWAY MESSENGER -GIRL FROM THE NECK DOWN COLUMN 18/01/2016
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