I’ve been mulling a review of David Bowie’s most recent album, Blackstar, which, if you’re reading this, no doubt you’ve realized was released mere days before his passing on January 10th. He died in peace, surrounded by family, so we’re told by his publicist. Could there be a better way to go for a man who made himself so private? For all his fame and public adoration, Bowie died simply, in the company of family. It seems fitting that, for whatever reasons were, Bowie’s prolonged battle with cancer (over 18 months, from the brief obituary provided) was hidden, and his music was allowed to speak for itself. In my mind, that’s how David Bowie would want to go out – not on his knees as the subject of tabloid spectacle, but on his feet, shouting one last opus to the world. How grand a man, to suffer in silence and let the grandeur of his work tell his tale. That’s David Bowie.

I can’t claim to remember all that David Bowie had to offer the world – I’m no historian and Wikipedia and Rolling Stone and others who lived through all phases of his career can, no doubt, provide history lessons and the emotional impact of what it felt like to be there and see Ziggy Stardust in concert. The experience, for me, is far less grand, but still as personal, and if only to personally say “thank you” to one of the greatest musicians to have ever lived, I’d like to share those experiences with you.

My earliest memories of David Bowie are simple. As a kid, I managed to catch Labyrinth on one of the Disney Channel’s free weekends. I was likely most enthralled by the fantastic landscape at the time, but the enchanting personality of “The Goblin King” played a definite part in inspiring my ambitions to act and perform. And for years in high school, friends and I would revisit the movie and attempt to re-enact Bowie’s precise maneuvering of crystal balls.

“Hey man, are you Ziggy Stardust?”

Within a few years of that experience, I can recall watching David Bowie play a concert on NBC’s The Today Show. I don’t recall if he played any song other than “I’m Afraid of Americans,” but I am certain that he performed that particular tune, as it has lingered with me ever since. Despite not having listened to the song for years and, having heard it only as a child, I could always recall its simple, but potent refrain seemingly out of the blue and to this day, it functions almost as a built-in siren in my mind whenever something horrific happens here in the good ol’ USA. As I went through listening to Blackstar, I even had to do a mental health check on myself and listen to the song I remembered from my childhood to ensure that it was even real (though I could recall it as vividly as ever). But take a look at this music video and tell me it’s not extraordinarily relevant at this point in American history:

Of course there were other blips of Bowie bleeding into my developing existence as they bled into those of anyone with an ear towards music. Around Christmas time, I would hear his “Little Drummer Boy” duet with Bing Crosby – an odd personnel combination, yet a beautiful rendition of an otherwise unremarkable song. Sometimes when you throw a titan like Bowie at something, he just makes magic happen. I heard “Space Oddity” and “Fame” and “Rebel Rebel” on the classic rock radio stations I listened to almost religiously as a child. They bled into my subconscious and became a part of the fundaments of musical reality to me. “Life on Mars” must have crept in at some point too, because despite no recollection of having ever heard it, I put the track on the other day and felt as though I’ve known it all my life, recalling a melody that I can’t remember ever memorizing. Perhaps it was just the effortless gravitas Bowie assigned to many of his hits.

Another powerhouse that really stuck with me and informed my development was his collaboration with Queen on “Under Pressure.” As a budding teenager, I feasted heavily on Queen (among few other artists and albums in the era before the internet) and the theatrical vocal interplay between Freddie Mercury and David Bowie around that great little bass hook just exploded in my ears. It was the opposite of the Bowie/Crosby duet. It was the perfect pairing both stylistically and harmonically and remains one of the greatest songs to be recorded, at least in my mind. (I need to mention, if for no other reason than spooky coincidence, that, as I was writing this paragraph, “Under Pressure” began playing on the YouTube shuffle of Bowie songs I have playing in the background with no influence or direction from my own hands. Thanks, Bowie.)

All that said, the true interest, perhaps even fascination, with Bowie for me, started with the purchase of the original Guitar Hero video game, which included the track “Ziggy Stardust.” I’m not quite sure what drew me toward the light of the intergalactic musician-savior, but there wasn’t more than a day between the moment I first heard “Ziggy Stardust” and the moment I added The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars to my musical collection. I learned its songs quickly. I sang “Suffragette City” at karaoke when out with friends and in dorm rooms when it was added to the later release of Rock Band. I imprinted every song from “Five Years” to “Velvet Goldmine” on my soul, and in part, lamented that I’d never write anything so brilliantly fluid, energetic, mournful, evocative, and downright human. A few years later, an original copy of Ziggy was one of the first vinyl albums I purchased, and it still holds a prominent position in my collection today.

At that point, we were already four years removed from David Bowie’s last release prior to 2013’s The Next Day. I hadn’t heard Reality and I hadn’t really heard Heathen, either – I was still stretching my legs musically and growing into the sensibilities I bear today, and Bowie had fallen off the musical radar in a manner quite deliberate on this part, but one I doubt he regrets much, if at all. Yet a very good friend of mine became enamored of Bowie and introduced me to other classics such as Low, Diamond Dogs, Aladdin Sane, Heroes, and Scary Monsters within a few years of my Ziggy kick. And, what can I say, it was as easy to get hooked on Bowie in 2009 as it must have been in the ’70s or ’80s.

Still, I was surrounded by life changes in 2013 and missed listening to The Next Day entirely until a few days ago while I was giving myself a primer for my planned Blackstar review. “How is it possible for Bowie to be so great at any age?” I kept asking myself, listening through both albums, back to back, repeatedly. “Valentine’s Day” became an instant favorite, while I remembered briefly listening to “The Stars (Are Out Tonight)” during its initial release as a single, only to find that it had the same Bowie magic of recall despite a limited initial listening. Some of the more somber tracks on the album (“Love is Lost,” “Where Are We Now?”) seem fitting today, just as many (myself included) are starting to find deeper meaning to many of the offerings on Blackstar.

At the end, I find it an incredible testament to who David Bowie was that he decided to create and release Blackstar. Whatever you make of its bleak and bizarre messages and offerings, you have to respect the fact that David Bowie, at 69 years old, dying of cancer, owed the public absolutely nothing in his final hour. Instead, he gave us something strange and beautiful. And though Blackstar takes on a tone Bowie hasn’t really tackled before in a way that no one has really tackled it before, strange and beautiful has always been his modus operandi. The addition of a little mystery and intrigue on Blackstar is merely an incredible parting gift to keep his listeners mesmerized by his genius for years to come.

Yet the message couldn’t be more clear. It’s the same message Bowie’s been spouting since the beginning: “Be strange. Be beautiful. Be yourself, and create art.” We should all be so strong, brave, beautiful and strange as David Bowie. May he rest in peace, but never be forgotten.

“This way or no way
You know I’ll be free
Just like that bluebird
Now, ain’t that just like me?

Oh, I’ll be free
Just like that bluebird
Oh, I’ll be free
Ain’t that just like me?”

-David Bowie, “Lazarus”