When the news started breaking in, and I saw the statuses covering my newsfeed, I refused to believe it. Bowie couldn’t have died this way, it was so sane, it was so sudden. I guess the shock came because he was still releasing such beautiful music while, he was facing his death. However, I guess that is the statement he leaves, a performance even in death. Has any artist ever reached that level of creativity? Has any artist confused everyone with the new styles he adopted? Will there be another Bowie again? So many questions, I wish I could answer right now, but, then I cannot.
Bowie won that battle friends. He won that eternal battle between the creator and creation, or maybe he lost the hardest. He became his creation, and his creation became him. And thus, the title of “the chameleon of music”. Heck, we even managed to give a steadfast title to a man who was anything but. He was successful throughout, even if he fell a bit and rose again, he was this person re-inventing himself, again and again until the critics were probably asking the questions they themselves couldn’t answer. This was a man who smiled and made us fall so much in love, someone who put a large question mark before all our sanities, and then validated our insanities in one fell swoop at the very same moment.
He is a hero. Yes, present tense, because I believe that as long as that weird guy is playing his music in his basement and getting inspired he would not be dead. After all, only human life is so fragile, our works of art aren’t. That is the hope I pin on Bowie, that he will live on. And 20 years after, while, working through my old luggage I will find his music again. I will inevitably cry at the artist who made me so much more. I would say a thousand words to me, and I will go mad, once more for a moment or two.
You see, this is not goodbye. This is an invitation. Love, chameleon, wherever you are. You are welcome to my madness, as you welcomed us to yours.
And I shall remember you Starman, goodnight.
Adieu
Out of an Abandoned Hospital 