Here's a picture. Me, it's about 1972 and I'm 13 years old, just in from school. Sitting in the front room on the floor at speaker height of my mum and dads stereogram. This song playing loud, blowing my young developing teenage mind. At 59 it still gives me goose bumps. And tears.
When a song starts off with "I'M AN ALLIGATOR" and "I'M A SPACE INVADER", you know the songs gonna be a rock 'n rollin' &itch for you. And you know damn well once she puts that raygun to your head, you might just freak out in a Moonage Daydream.
So I met Bowie on 11th Street between 5 and 6 in NYC, around 2007; I lived on 8th Street, also midway between 5 and 6, east of Macdougal. I saw this couple walking toward me, and my first thought was "That woman is the tallest woman I have ever seen." I looked at him briefly, kept checking her out, back to him, her, him.... him.... I drew level with them, and stopped in my tracks. He looked at me and I have to say, those eyes, that sheer force of persona just froze me. I've met celebrities before, even a couple of my personal heroes, but this... was something other. He stuck out his hand, said "'Allo!" and I shook it... Iman tossed her head and sniffed, clearly annoyed. He gave me about two beats to say something, anything, and I simply couldn't. He then said "Right then!" and walked off.
Even meeting McCartney wasn't like that.
Mum: take those bloody ear-phones out
Me: but I've got half of this Bowie song to go
Mum: can't you just pause it?
Me: you don't just pause a Bowie song
A quote I cant remember word for word by Simon Pegg but " If you're ever feeling down remember the earth is about 4 billion years old and you got to be here while David Bowie was alive"
Thanks for the memories, David. I’m 62 now, and feel privileged to have lived while you were on this Earth. You played the soundtrack to my adolescence and I’ll always be grateful. By the way, that solo at the end of the song.... Mick Ronson did that with just his left hand on the neck of the guitar. Bowie would not have been Bowie without him. Both are gone, now, and the world is dimmer without them.