Two of us turned up to band rehearsals last night with new songs. Both of them mentioned Bowie. Both songs alluded to the finality of death and the inevitable passing of heroes no matter how mighty, tall or otherwise. Simon’s sang of lots of musicians both living and dead and lamenting that they may or may not be born again. Mine, perhaps more cynically and less religiously open, through the line:
If dust is all we'll ever be, let that be an end to it
Now, my song, which goes by the title “The day that Bowie died” has numerous lyrical and musical allusions to his work, or at least my attempt at that. I wrote the song yesterday, Sunday, in the morning, took the dog for her walk at lunchtime, came back and recorded a demo, tweaked it a bit, re-recorded it down a tone so I could sing the high notes better and then recorded and mixed vocals, guitar, bass and a bit of silly beatboxing.
As I was writing the song though I was thinking of how so many of us have responded to Bowie’s death, as if we’d lost a really close friend or a relative even, rather than someone we just happen to know because his wonderful music and creativity made him famous. I was musing on the fact that it’s almost like we perceived him in a religious way. Perhaps that’s the reason so many people are grieving for him: we don’t expect our gods to die.
Maybe it’s something deeper. As social animals, we need heirarchies, someone generally has to be the group leader, someone has to delegate, otherwise, the social bit would be all-night parties and we’d run out of food or get eaten by wild animals soon enough. Did our brains evolve to readily latch on to the powerful characters, those with the charisma and the charm to become the alphas and tell us what to do (the modern, sensible urge to democratize aside)? Is our following the leader down to evolution and the need to make a cohesive society? Spiritual leaders then emerge from this naturally, hooking into a super-heirarchy from above (or below) to which they claim a direct connection and so gain a divine right to tell us what to do?
It hasn’t always simply been the leader with the biggest sword or the burliest henchmen – Gengis Khan, Napoleon, Hitler, etc – who have ruled, there have been the simple charismatic crowd pleasers with a message, divine or otherwise – Jesus of Nazareth, Ghandi, Mandela, etc. While not all world leaders are necessarily good people, they definitely exude something that draws people to them and allows them to persuade and cajole whether that’s Barack Obama, Angela Merkel, Kim Jong Un or even, perish the thought, David Cameron.
No message came in from Major Tom, But a black star on the horizon taught us everything we needed to know
Of course, the more liberal minded, creative types, artists, musicians, scientists, actors are often disinclined to admire politicians. Instead, they often recognise creative prowess as more important and the likes of David Bowie who touch them emotionally through their music, their art, their acting, their discoveries become more important to them. Bowie was certainly no leper Messiah, he was no actual Messiah as it turns out, but, for several decades, it felt like maybe he could turn out to be one. We had our fingers crossed and were simply waiting for him to come and meet us. That seems to be a mindblowingly big thing to lose…