Some of my earliest, dearest and most profound childhood memories are based around music. As a child, my parents rented David Bowie‘s Serious Moonlight, Talking Heads‘ Stop Making Sense (arguably the best live concert movie ever made) and The Police‘s Synchronicity on Betamax from Video Joe’s on 67th Avenue and Queens Blvd. Even after more than 30 years later, I can remember the sense of awe and wonder that I had felt then — that “warm thrill of confusion/that space cadet glow,” that Roger Waters sings about on The Wall, and I was absolutely, desperately, madly obsessed. I wanted to be exactly like the cool people on stage making those crazy sounds that made me feel things I couldn’t quite explain, that made me dance and sing along and even at 3, 4 and 5, I knew that what those cool people on stage doing the same exact thing to the people watching them perform. I have a picture of platinum haired Bowie in a sky blue suit — with suspenders, no less! — permanently imprinted in my mind’s eye.
And although I never got a chance to chance to perform on stage and thrill a crowd, that same obsession that stirred in me when I was 3, 4 and 5 has wound up inspiring and informing my life as a music journalist and as a blogger. I wake up every single day feeling incredibly lucky — I’ve focused a significant portion of my adult life on my childhood obsessions and so many people actually care about it.
So when I came across the news that David Bowie had died after an 18 month struggle with cancer earlier this morning, I was heartbroken. It feels as though someone I had known very deeply and loved had died and that their absence feels implausible and unbelievable. I’ve long accepted that people are born and that they die. That in itself is human. Much like Lemmy Kilmister, David Bowie was just someone who I just believed would never die.
Sadly, I couldn’t find the full and uncut version of Serious Moonlight on YouTube but you can check out 9 videos from the concert film that has managed to be so influential to my life. But also check out a great list of 55 Bowie videos with so many songs that I’ve loved dearly.
