Monday, January 11, 2016

My (Brief) Eulogy for David Bowie

Honestly, "Bowie" is practically an adjective to me. It summarizes a nebulas of hyper-aware mystery that I otherwise have no words for. You have rock stars that beam and want you to know they're glowing, and sometimes you have rock stars that are dim as shit and still want you to know they're glowing. What I got from David Bowie was that he shined like an alien spacecraft and shrugged it off. The dude understood identity. Bowie was a presence in the very least and a goddamn genius otherwise. And it's not just because he wrote at least a dozen songs that make my lips move before my brain even knows what we're doing. It's not just the music. It's that the dude fucking got "it." How I see things is that the world was an entirely different masterpiece to David Bowie.

He had the confidence of someone who a god explained the universe to, and he carried himself like the friend of a friend at a party. I mean, shit, I obviously didn't know the man, but I remember thinking once, "What kind of world would it be without Bowie?" Honestly, consider the fact that he wrote "Young Americans" for his ninth album. He was that good for that long, and now have you heard Blackstar? It's his 25th album and it just came out to critical acclaim. Do you understand how insane that is? He was in the music game for 50+ years and still writing on his deathbed, never repeating himself and still good at it while trying out fresh tactics. That's artistic integrity that should make your heart explode and your brain melt.

You get good music every year, but a David Bowie only comes around once in a lifetime. I feel like we lost the only alien visitor we've ever had. Bless David Bowie for being the most David Bowie he could've David Bowie'd. He made the world more curious that way.