Tuesdays with Media: the Music of David Bowie

I found out yesterday afternoon that music legend David Bowie died on Sunday at the age of 69, after a battle with cancer.  I am ill-equipped to discuss Mr. Bowie, whose real name is David Jones, as a person (as I did not know him) or his music (as I only know his most popular songs), but I am saddened by his passing.

I discovered Bowie's music sometime after my mission, my first exposure being to the soulful "Space Oddity":

If you look close, you can see that Bowie has one blue eye and one green eye.

I was struck by the strange, sad ending and the fact that he was basically singing a duet with himself.  The song was originally written as a rebuttal to Elton John's "Rocket Man."  I always felt that Bowie won that particular argument.

One song that I discovered inadvertently was "The Man Who Sold the World":

I first heard the song as a cover by the band Nirvana.  It was a popular recording from their Unplugged special on MTV and the band's frontman, Kurt Cobain, even credits the song as being "a David Bowie song," but that part is often cut out when it's played on the radio (it's even cut from the video to which I linked).  By chance, I caught the final line one day and decided to seek out the original.  While I appreciate what Nirvana was able to do with the song, my favorite has been Bowie's version ever since I first heard it.

 As time went on, I continued to stumble across or seek it out Bowie's work.  Whether it was the upbeat "Changes," the funkadelic "Fame," the classic rock-inspired "Suffragette City," or the moody dance song "Let's Dance," I never came across a song that was bad (neither "Young Americans" or "I'm Afraid of Americans" are my favorites, but I also can't deny the talent behind them).

My favorite Bowie song, after "Space Oddity," is probably the contagiously happy-sounding "Golden Years":

The lyrics act as a bit of a juxtaposition to the happy melody -- to me, the song is about one person giving their all for the happiness of another, with no indication that either is actually happy.  That may not be the intended meaning, but that's what I got out of it.

David Bowie released a farewell album, Blackstar, the week before his passing, with multiple songs about his impending death.  I've listened to it twice and I'm starting to enjoy it more, but it's bizarre.  It's a weird fusion of electronica and jazz, with rock and folk elements thrown in as well.  I liked it better on my second pass, so maybe it's the kind of thing that needs to grow on you.

As I said at the outset, I'm ill-qualified to review David Bowie's music, but it felt appropriate for me to share some of my personal thoughts and feelings about the music from a talented man who died too young and will be well-remembered.