[MUSIC] In memoriam David Bowie
Jan. 11th, 2016 12:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rfmcdonaldThe video for "Lazarus", the last video David Bowie filmed for the last single he ever released, is especially haunting in light of the news early this morning that he had died yesterday.
We have indeed had confirmation, from the likes of the A.V. Club and The Telegraph and most notably NME that this video was Bowie's goodbye to the fans.
The global reaction to the sad news of Bowie's passing has been intense. The blogs have been full of reactions: Crooked Timber, In Media Res, Joe. My. God., Lawyers, Guns and Money, and Towleroad all have also reacted.
It's difficult to know quite what to say--I find myself agreeing with Alan Cross that Bowie is just not supposed to die. He's just so important. His status as a LGBT icon is noteworthy, as is his influence on--say--science fiction.
(I revisisted my 2009 essay on his famous character of Major Tom. I wonder what's he's doing now.)
For now, all I can say is thanks for the music. I remember spending long times in bed at home on the Island, absorbed in his 3-CD Sound + Vision box set as it played out on my CD player. I owe him thanks, for everything. What else can I say?
Oh, I'll be free
Just like that bluebird
Oh, I'll be free
Ain't that just like me?"
We have indeed had confirmation, from the likes of the A.V. Club and The Telegraph and most notably NME that this video was Bowie's goodbye to the fans.
Released only four days ago, the video for single ‘Lazarus’ was Bowie’s parting shot, opening with a blindfolded, fragile-looking Bowie laying in bed. His first words “look up here, I’m in heaven/I’ve got scars that can’t be seen” are now obviously an admission of his ill health, rather than just a fantastical musing on mortality. It soon becomes obvious that the bed he's in is a hospital one and Bowie begins to float above it, signifying his transmutation to the other side – whatever, or wherever that may be. Watching it now, it’s a statement as bold as it is bleak.
As Bowie writhes around on the bed, trying to break free, another Bowie then appears, a Bowie clad in black and stood upright, a Bowie who can still pose, pout, pick up a pen and create. Inspiration hits him and he scrawls at speed in a notebook, while the other Bowie continues to convulse. As he writes, we see a skull sitting ominously on his writing desk, the spectre of death looming over Bowie and his final creation, before he steps backwards into a wooden wardrobe, a fitting kind of coffin for an icon of style and fashion.
"His death was no different from his life - a work of Art," explained Bowie's producer Tony Visconti, in tribute. "He made 'Blackstar' for us, his parting gift. I knew for a year this was the way it would be. I wasn't, however, prepared for it." Creative to the very end, the 'Lazarus' video is a heartbreakingly sad way to bid farewell, but a more than appropriate one.
The global reaction to the sad news of Bowie's passing has been intense. The blogs have been full of reactions: Crooked Timber, In Media Res, Joe. My. God., Lawyers, Guns and Money, and Towleroad all have also reacted.
It's difficult to know quite what to say--I find myself agreeing with Alan Cross that Bowie is just not supposed to die. He's just so important. His status as a LGBT icon is noteworthy, as is his influence on--say--science fiction.
Bowie’s first hit single, “Space Oddity,” established him not just as an artist who sang about science-fictional topics like space travel, but also as someone who embraced the discomfort of humanity juxtaposed against the cosmos. The song’s churning guitar riffs and psychedelic noises convey something of the disorientation of floating in a tin can, far from home. Over the years that followed, Bowie produced some of the most poignant representations ever of alien visitors, doomed grandeur and tormented supermen. I recently listened to his song “The Man Who Sold the World” on a loop while writing, and it reveals more and more layers of pathos, remorse and arrogance the more you hear it.
Bowie’s greatest gift to science fiction was that combination of pathos and dissocation, which comes across in a lot of his best songs. His album Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, a rock opera about a band led by a mysterious figure, encapsulates the apocalypse, androgyny and rockstar excess with the same bohemian drama. (Click here to read Bowie explaining to William S. Burroughs the whole fascinating backstory of Ziggy Stardust.) Ziggy Stardust was just one of many personas that Bowie created over the years, including the zombie-like Thin White Duke.
(I revisisted my 2009 essay on his famous character of Major Tom. I wonder what's he's doing now.)
For now, all I can say is thanks for the music. I remember spending long times in bed at home on the Island, absorbed in his 3-CD Sound + Vision box set as it played out on my CD player. I owe him thanks, for everything. What else can I say?
