David Bowie's Crush

       

     My first introduction to David Bowie came at a very early age. I was well into my fifth year of deviousness when I heard for the first time Changes.   I was most definitely too young and innocent at the time to understand any of the words and meanings back then, but for some reason the rifts etched their way into my mind and firmly stuck.        
     Many years later I would revisit this magician in mid high school with his saturation of Lets Dance.  As a young and unawares young man in-the-closet and growing up in Alaska, this was very exciting for me to hear and see him on MTV and Friday Night Videos. The shimmer of the little 13 inch black and white TV was all I needed to work my magic on myself while he crooned to me.      
     Smitten.       
     In college in California I was tentatively pursuing physical interests with men, and experimenting further with Bowie's earlier works.  
     Both were satisfying, frightening and felt right.   
     I quickly fell in love with Hunky Dory and The Man Who Sold The World, as well as with a young angular Indian boy named Jason.  I learned about mental and physical love from his steady, patient body while hearing Life On Mars.   I began to see things around me with a different perspective. Ideas were blossoming in my mind while reaching that point of no return.  I would quickly revisit them and Jason over and over for weeks on end.        
     Classes let out for the summer and Jason quickly broke my heart.      
     David Bowie didn't.        
     Nothing would ever be the same. 
  
      “I recall how we lived On the corner of a bed 
     And we'd speak of a Swedish room 
     Of hessian and wood 
     And we'd talk with our eyes 
     Of the sweetness in our lives 
     And tomorrows of rich surprise...”       

     Today I had the fortunate surprise to get a special gift from a very good friend--the newest copy of David Bowie's album, The Next Day.
      I wasn't' sure what to make of this innocent monster sitting before me on my laptop screen and lulling softly in my ear buds.  I first heard his newest single in over 10 years--Where Are We Now, just a few weeks before.   
     I felt a little uneasy, revisiting an old lover, learning and relearning how to please and be pleased.  The song itself was a dreamily-weaved state of yesterday's images with continually flowing waves of nostalgia and remembrance to a life far away on the horizon. I was immediately infatuated by its simple yet torch-like qualities.
     I still imagine Bowie sitting up before me on a stark silhouette of a stage.  A stool placed in the center.  His arms are folded as he sits comfortably while a lit cigarette protrudes from his wispy fingers.  There is a solitary microphone positioned in front of him.  He croons into it with the sole desire to slay and seduce, and he does.
     When I finally saw the video for this song, my shoulders sunk, my head lowered and I wanted to go cry in the corner.  I hated it.  I still refuse to watch the video.  I just close my eyes and imagine the Thin White Duke sitting there in front of me and blowing smoke in my direction.   
     I sometimes smell the nicotine on his breath with hints of gin and lemon ginger.
     I started to listen to every track, singular breath by singular breath, taking each as a virgin would lean in for their first kiss: unsure and excited at the future opening up before them.  Perhaps a little rigid down there.  
     Yes, I was about to lose myself to him again.
      Some tracks in this long overdue gem are definitely revisiting and reinventing his previous lifetime in sound and spectacle.
      The title track of the album gives me impressions of his side project from years ago entitled Tin Machine; Organic, in-your-face and passionate.  It feels of a rebirth of ones rawness and lusting for a life that once was.  Almost a ballad to his Ziggy personae, enticing him to come back from the dead and give one last breath of fire to the world.  However I can't help but listen keenly to it and expect to see John Cameron Mitchell's Hedwig burst on the scene, push Bowie off the stage and begin singing again, enveloping the spotlight. 
    (Sometimes my imagination gets the best of me.)  
    There are a few other vocal stories along this genre sprinkled about in this album. Some are brilliant and sharp. Some are not. 
    Not every chocolate in the box can be a favorite.  What I may detest and spit out someone else may find absolutely acute and bursting with creativity. Their chocolate covered cherry if you will.
     More power to you and yours.
     Bowie's crystal voice has seemed to definitely mellow and smooth over in comparison to his previous albums.  He seems to understand that he doesn't need vocal flash and glitter spewing from every orifice in order for an experience to be memorable.
   He embraces it.   
   He can still whisper the pants off me.  

   You Feel So Lonely You Could Die gives me chills.  

  "I can feel you falling, I hear you moaning in your room."
  
   I've listened to this over and over and I just feel like he's singing this to, amazingly, Himself!  Is he eulogizing to Himself in the future or in the past?  Is he uniquely aware of his mortality and drawing things to a close?  Is he someone who believes in bookends?   
   Let's hope not.

   If You Can See Me.  This is my WTF song.  It's there.  It's different.  However it doesn't grab me by the balls, twist to the right slowly and say "Want more little boy?"
     Still, Bowie has a wonderful sense of theatrics and flamboyance, and I can envision him revisiting his "Man who fell to Earth" character, Thomas Newton, in Heat.  It's a sorrowed, remorseful, yet somehow standing-above-it-all type of ballad.  It is steadfast against a storm of auto-tuned trash and delivers monologues to all who will lend it an ear. 

    "And I tell myself I don't know who I am."   
    "I am a seer but I am a liar"

    Potent.   
    Keen.    
    Definitely a fitting end to this journey.   

    I really hope that if he tours with this album that he does so in small venues.  Songs like this would definitely be lost in a large and soulless auditorium. They are personal, profound, awkward and need a space that respects each one.  I'm sure they are extensions of his own id and ego, as well as the ids and egos of his many incarnations throughout his decades of existence.

     I encourage everyone to give it a listen in iTunes for free until the album officially comes out next week.