10 years after Bowie

The Red Shoes

“David Bowie had everything. He was intelligent, imaginative, brave, charismatic, cool, sexy and truly inspirational both visually and musically. He created such staggeringly brilliant work, yes, but so much of it and it was so good. There are great people who make great work but who else has left a mark like his? No one like him.

I’m struck by how the whole country has been flung into mourning and shock. Shock, because someone who had already transcended into immortality could actually die. He was ours. Wonderfully eccentric in a way that only an Englishman could be.

Whatever journey his beautiful soul is now on, I hope he can somehow feel how much we all miss him.”

[Kate Bush on Bowie’s death]

David Bowie went to the great gig in the sky 10 years ago today. He was a unique and truly brilliant artist. He said this about Mortality:

The truth is, of course, that there is no journey. We are arriving and departing all at the same time.

My favourite Bowie record is ‘Station to Station’ whose title track is a journey by railway. The notion that we are going in two directions at once is a difficult one for us humans to grasp. The fact that we are dying from the moment we take our first breath is something we do not care to notice or acknowledge. As Kate Bush recorded, the day he died was a shocking and sad moment for many people. But who wants to live for ever? Guillermo del Toro’s recent ‘Frankenstein’ captures brilliantly the loneliness and hellishness of that.

Swift also captures the undesirability of eternal life well in ‘Gulliver’s Travels’. Gulliver encounters the Struldbruggs, human-like beings born with a red spot on their forehead. They are immortal but do not have eternal youth – they age normally and suffer all the physical and mental infirmities of extreme old age. By 80 they are considered legally dead in their society, stripped of their property rights, and become miserable, cantankerous outcasts who are incapable of friendship and envy those who can die. Gulliver’s initial excitement about meeting immortals quickly turns to horror upon seeing the reality of the Struldbruggs’ existence. The key satirical point Swift is making here is to highlight how humans fear death and desire unending life without considering the consequences of perpetual decay.

 

Here’s what I wrote on hearing about Bowie’s death on 10th January 2016.

And here’s what I wrote after further reflection on The Next Day.

Self-centred creativity

“All my big mistakes are when I try to second-guess or please an audience. My work is always stronger when I get very selfish about it.”

David Bowie – The Word, 2003

A great artist makes clear the pitfalls of making music or any kind of art with your focus outside yourself. It’s fine to have a good sense of who your target audience is but that should not be how you shape your creativity. The creative force needs to come from your own mind and heart, and satisfy you first and foremost.