David Bowie has passed away after an 18 month battle with cancer. He was 69.
Approve of his lifestyle or not – the man could indeed sing, write, and act. Few could do any of those as well as he did all of them.
BBC has a reasonable obit for Bowie. If you’re so inclined, it’s worth reading. Ditto the UK Mirror’s article of Bowie trivia.
RIP, Ziggy Stardust. And for some reason, this just seems apropos today.
Comments
27 responses to “RIP, Ziggy”
Rebel Rebel, Suffragette City….I always found his music interesting even if his personal tastes were at odds with mine.
He was an interesting voice and for me an artist of some importance in that with those odd personal tastes he made consider the world around me from a different perspective. Something that has served me well in both the Army and as a civilian.
The world needs warriors, but it also needs its artists and dreamers to make the world the warriors save worth living in.
RIP Major Tom, while you were often an oddity to me I thank you for helping to make the 70s not suck.
Glass Spider Concert. I wore my red shoes, sat in the second row in the balcony, stage left. Everybody in the row got up and danced when he started ‘Let’s Dance’. He saw us and waved at us. Best show ever.
Ground control to Major Tom. Commencing liftoff. Engines on.
See you around, Bowie.
R.I.P. Ziggy Stardust…
Ground control to Major tom!
Coming home.
See, this is why I visit TAH every day and learn something new.
Never was a Bowie fan, so really never listened very closely to his music, but whenever I heard that song I thought he was singing about Slim Pickens’ character on Doctor Strangelove, Major Kong.
Funny how your ears and mind sometimes don’t work in concert.
Anyway, Rest In Peace. I’m sure you brought a lot of joy to your fans.
Claw, maybe this’ll help!
http://www.kissthisguy.com/
The Goblin King is dead. Long live The Goblin King.
Often, I am surprised as the spectrum of true tolerance and diversity exhibited on “this board” (h/t Lars). This is one of those times. I never was a Bowie fan myself, but from what I hear, he was admired, respected, and mourned by many. Rock on TAH Cadre. Rock on.
Several reasons were that Bowie wasn’t pushing an agenda, wasn’t insulting our intelligence, and had a product (his music and acting) that was good enough that people were willing to pay for it.
That’s exactly it. He had one product, his talent. And he tailored it to promote 1 thing, David Bowie. No politics, no product placement, nothing but Bowie, on his terms. And it worked. There’s a lesson in there somewhere.
Major Tom went home last night. See you in the tin can, you goddamn legend.
ONW of the great things about Bowie was that, if you didn’t like a particular album or style, you could always count on him doing something different on his next project.
Trivia: The lead guitarist on the studio track of “Lets Dance” was Stevie Ray Vaughn. Bowie even asked him if he’d join his band, but Stevie turned it down. Now they can play it in Rock and Roll heaven.
Yeah, I saw him in Syracuse back then and luckily SRV decided to put out Texas Flood instead of touring with Bowie. Saw both of them live, both shows were awesome.
Merry Christmas, Major Celliers…
Only like a couple of his songs, but he definitely made an impact and had a huge fan base. Can you hear me Major Tom? RIP
I guess my first experience with the music of David Bowie was in the mid 70’s, listening to “Fame” on a little FM radio when it was a big hit. A few years later in 1979 he made an appearance on Saturday Night Live with Klaus Nomi – whether I was ready to see men performing in tight skirts or not, there it was.
In the summer of 1983 I took a day of leave to stand in line at the mall to get tickets at the Ticketron (remember those?) for the Serious Moonlight Tour stop at the Capitol Centre in Landover, MD. What a great show and performer, who also surrounded himself with great talent. There are many videos on Youtube taken from that 1983 tour, I never tire of seeing them.
A man of many talents – whether playing the Goblin King in Labyrinth, an alien in The Man Who Fell to Earth (I’ve only recently seen that one) or performing on a television Christmas special with Bing Crosby.
Now that he’s gone, I think of Peter Gabriel’s orchestral rendition of “Heroes”.
Farewell to the Thin White Duke.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSX9F6ETTDQ
Talent personified.
https://youtu.be/uMQb9LCNGxs
Goodbye Ziggy, God’s speed to you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLYafk0Lui0
Sigh. In less than a month, David Bowie and Lemmy both died. Alas. Time to dig through my Bowie and Motorhead LPs…
Strange, weird, an oddball for sure. But undeniably a great talent.
RIP.
takes all kinds of people to make the world spin …. but the chosen few are the axis upon which it revolves
RIP Major Tom.
Even though I liked some of his songs I heard, I was never in a position of being able to see him live, until his Oct 24 & 25 1995 shows in Tacoma & Portland with NIN. My perspective is working front of stage and floor level. When both events were finished and fans cleared out, Bowie called a meeting and thanked us for a job well done. He was respectful and professional. When he found out there were veterans working too, we were pretty much floored when he came around to shake hands again and thanking us for OUR service to our country.
Also not a fan, but friends did. I’d rather listen to Dylan, Cream, Marley..no he didn’t shoot me ? R.I.P. David, my friends mourn your loss…
Bowie wrote “Heroes” after watching a couple kissing at the Berlin wall. The wall came down soon after that. He was a whack job but, most geniuses are. Another great one passes into eternity.
Not particularly soon afterwards. “Heroes” was released in 1977. The Berlin Wall came down 12 years later.
May have an article about that tune one day. It has a helluva interesting “backstory”.