In Memoriam | David Bowie

David Bowie | 1947 - 2016 

I’m going to keep this short, I don’t feel up to dwelling on this too much.

David, I love you.

A lot of heroes of mine have passed away recently – Rik Mayall, Robin Williams, Lemmy – but this. This is really hard to take.

David Bowie has meant the world to me since I can remember. My Mum was the person who introduced me to him from playing his music everywhere when I was a kid. I was one of the luckiest kids on the planet to have parents that had (and still have) an insane love for music. My Dad constantly played bands like Pink Floyd, Genesis and Led Zeppelin around the house, whereas my Mum would constantly play Bowie, Queen, and Madness. Each musician gives me certain nostalgic childhood memories, whether it's my Dad playing Floyd on Sunday afternoons, or me and my Mum belting out Bowie songs in the car. 

The first time I registered who he was, I was probably around four years old. Hearing ‘Life on Mars?’ for the first time, I sat there thinking, "That’s me!" to the lyric ‘to the girl with the mousy hair’. That lead on to me nearly wearing out our VHS copy of Labyrinth, imitating him on a daily basis through both singing and dancing - questioningly - to his music videos and my Mum’s records, persuading my parents to let me stay up to watch the television series of Life on Mars…David has been such a huge part of my life. It felt as though I’d lost a piece of my heart when I found out he died.

I’ve always thought it was trivial to get overly choked up and cry over a musician or actor dying, but I couldn’t hold it together when I found out. David’s always felt to me – and my Mum - like a distant family member that you never see, but you know they’re looking out for you.

He taught me it’s okay to be weird. That it’s even better to be different. He gave me the mindset when I was getting severely bullied as a kid that ‘if David Bowie can be himself, I can be myself. Regardless of what other kids might think.’ That mindset has stuck with me since. It stuck with me through the countless years of bullying, it stuck with me when I began showing signs of Generalized Anxiety Disorder to when I got diagnosed with it, and it’s still with me now.

If it weren’t for my Mum introducing to Bowie since, well, birth I guess, I would be a completely different person. I obviously have so much more to say about him, but this is all I can get out of my head right now. 

Thank you, David. For everything. I miss you so much already. The stars look very different today.