The passing of David Bowie...

Playlist

Cloudland Blue Quartet - Four Last Things

David Bowie - Blackstar

David Bowie - The Singles Collection 1964-2016

I left the house this morning intending to give a listen for most of today to the proposed new CBQ album...

However, on checking my Twitter feed on the bus into town, it seemed something was up...

There seemed to be a lot of comments concerning David Bowie...

And then "David Bowie RIP"?

As I scrolled down, I found it was true, announced at 7am - I'd not listened to the radio or watched TV or checked the computer before leaving the house...

People thought it a hoax till his son confirmed the news...

Dead at 69, just two days after the release of his album "Blackstar"...

And so, today was dominated by one thing...

I listened again to his new songs as I took my usual walk along to Fopp...

Text exchanges with Anne expressing our disbelief...

Fopp's display, re the release of his latest LP, now taking on a shrine like air...

Those new songs now too, of course, had new meaning and a new poignancy...

But, I did not know this man...

I am not a member of his family or a close friend or even an acquaintance – they are the people who really have to deal with the fact that they will never again see the David Jones they knew and loved – the person I did not know...

I am only a fan of David Bowie...

And I only saw him a couple of times in the flesh over the last 44 years, since buying the 7" single of "Starman" in April 1972...

To be honest, I was unlikely ever to see him again, even if he'd lived till he was 100...

That said, judging by just how saddened I am by his passing, it would certainly seem that this man and his art meant and mean a lot to me...

"Drive-In Saturday" soundtracked our first dance at our wedding in 1983, in the days when people didn't have weird 70's singles for their first dance...

Now they'll practise the choreography from "Thriller" with their entire wedding party and post the results on Youtube, hoping to go viral...

David Bowie's art outlives him, as it will outlive me – and, more than likely, everyone else alive today...

And what a life he lived...

Indeed, it seems his death was one brilliant last artful act in that wonderful life...

His final single, "Lazarus", with its opening line "look up here, I'm in heaven" timed almost perfectly to coincide with his demise...

And so, although sad at his passing, though I did not know David Bowie, I have his music still...

So, in a way "Nothing Has Changed"...

Lowlight of the Day : The passing of David Bowie...