Sunday 8th January

Last night I spent an evening with David.  David Bowie of course.  BBC2, my favourite channel had a documentary about the last five years of David’s incredible life, followed by the film The Man Who Fell To Earth.

It was wonderful.  To be immersed in David’s world once again, his image and his music, was a privilege.  The documentary had lots of footage of David throughout his career, the Ziggy days, the Thin White Duke, the Berlin years, the pugilist of Let’s Dance, and the final Reality Tour – and then a silence for around 7 or 8 years, and finally his resumption of music-making and the last two albums.  I must say here that I am slowly, and very slowly growing to like the last two records – too shoutty, too noisy and largely not enough good tunes – but still the very fact that seriously ill, he managed to make them at all was incredible.

Then the film; Nicholas Roeg’s masterpiece.  Made in 1976 it was really interesting to re-visit, the brash American cars, the inventions of Newton (Bowie) which have been so superseded by time and technology.  But the performances were still wonderful, especially of course Bowie.  He has never looked more other-worldly, more modern, more brilliant.  I am not even sure he was acting at all; he has always seemed alien, in this world but not of it, able to show us through a distorted mirror  so much about both the World and ourselves.  I am still puzzled by quite a lot of the film, but in the end it didn’t matter.  What a wonderful evening, immersed in and remembering the marvelous David Bowie.