DAVID BOWIE (day · vid bow · ee)

Tempo di lettura: 6 minuti

Burroughs: The “Wild Boys” weapon is a Bowie knife, a forty-five centimeter Bowie knife, did you know that?
Bowie: A forty-five centimeter Bowie knife…of course you don’t do things by halves, no really. No, I didn’t know that was their weapon. The name Bowie attracted me when I was younger. I was sixteen years old, I was in a deep philosophical phase, and I was looking for something immediate, something that would immediately make you think of severing the lie, something like that.
Burroughs: Well, it can cut both ways, you know, at the tip the blade is double.
Bowie: I didn’t realize, until now, that the blade was double.

 

On the podium of people who have inspired my life, my choices, my thoughts, is him in all his transformations. Beyond the podium, he sits right on the throne. After my family, he represents the most constant presence for a very specific reason: he came into my life when I was eight years old. One of the family in short, in the true sense of the word: but only I knew this, because David was my imaginary friend.

In 1986, when I was precisely eight years old, my father took me to the cinema to see Labyrinth. And there it all began. Everyone has the imaginary friend they choose: a lot of people talk to God, pray to Jesus … I was talking to David Bowie without harming anyone, since I never had the pretension of founding a religion that preached his verb – although I am convinced that it would be good for a better world, we can always reason about it.
In short, I went to the cinema with my father, and I came out with this new friend, whose voice was as creepy as it was comforting to me. A friend who dressed as a mime, as a crazy boy – Aladdin Insane, which can be read as A Lad Insane – as the alien Ziggy Stardust, as a creature somewhere between a man and a dog – Diamond Dogs – to the elegant and introverted White Duke; who taught me that clothes are not “feminine and masculine” but are clothes we can wear as we please.

In general, my passion for music was quite early.

Before I even started middle school, I was listening to Bowie, Queen, Pink Floyd, Bob Marley, Carlos Santana, Led Zeppelin…a musical landscape to which Giorgia Meloni and her clique would apply censorship, along with a lot of cartoons and the very viewing of Labyrinth.
It was thanks to music that I had the hurry to study the English: I had to understand, so I would translate lyrics using the vocabulary and basic grammar rules I had learned up to that age. I was good at it. We were at the gates of the 90’s, it was a lot of work, but a great exercise in comprehension and pronunciation.

With one of my oldest friends I shared a passion for music, the discovery of this adult world that burst into our very young lives: we used to give each other vinyls packed with newspaper sheets, because it didn’t matter what the packaging was, we knew what was inside.

Bowie represented more than the music I listened to; he was the world of imagination that accompanied my everyday life. Forgive me, I cannot go on talking about him in the past tense, because he is still my guide to discovering the world, to self-determination, to that outer and inner freedom that represents for me the greatest gift, especially since he has always traveled hand in hand with my desire to help make the world a place free of barriers, stereotypes, prejudices.
David Bowie represents the freedom to be what one wants, even to the point of being a man who fell to earth from space.

There is no written statement anywhere that, being born, we must fill fixed roles, follow paths mapped out by someone outside ourselves/themselves, fulfill tasks that someone else has “traditionally” defined for us, force beliefs and lifestyles that accompany us throughout our lives.
There is no motivation why we cannot choose every day.
From his London beginnings in New York to Japan and Europe, Bowie became a worldwide star and icon not only as a performer and musician, but also as an inspirer of looks and designs that make him unmistakable even decades later. To imitate him, many have tried, and I find that to be a positive influence because it pays homage to his uniqueness.
But he remains unique.

Through his image, his words, his transformations, he has chronicled eras, social and personal changes, jumping from one dimension to another through continuous experimentation. He has done so causing scandal, controversy, astonishmenand, fascination, almost always at the same time. A creature in constant evolution and research, in my opinion like no other artist in the world. He has been able to be contaminated, but above all he has been as contaminated. Each of his albums represents his personal experimentation.
His biography is so extensive, complex, and fascinating that I will not allow myself to summarize it, but I certainly recommend reading Starman by Paul Trynka which goes all the way to the making of the album The Next Day.
I have not given his birth and death dates simply because he always has been and always will be, that is, Starman: come from space and returned there.
The day of his return-or, if you will, of his death-I can never forget: I thought it was fake news-one of the many that come out about the deaths of famous people-even though, following the presentation of his musical Lazarus and the photos of the release of the Blackstar album, I had noticed that he was not in the best shape, suddenly aged and with a complexion that was not exactly rosy. I lived that day and the next in disbelief. Then I began to feel that sense of loss of a little piece of my life, of my childhood, of my little world.

It’s only forever, not long at all

One night I dreamed about it: I was at a university, and I had just taken an exam. David Bowie was filling out my exam booklet and he had to write my last name: laughing, he mispronounced it, as they all do a bit with his. I laughed with him, embarrassed and excited. As we left together, we stopped in the hallway: I turned to him and asked, “but why do you have to die? Can’t you stay? I can’t think that you won’t be here anymore.” He didn’t answer me. I cried and we hugged: I felt that hug and woke up with the bodily sensation that I had actually held someone close to me, but I was alone.
I realized that, since then, listening to his music has become a private, intimate affair. I do it in solitude as if I were receiving a friend in the house with whom I want to spend time, without distractions. I am doing this now as I write, and as I finish these last lines, I listen to his words

Oh no love! you’re not alone
You’re watching yourself but you’re too unfair
You got your head all tangled up but if I could only make you care
Oh no love! you’re not alone
No matter what or who you’ve been
No matter when or where you’ve seen
All the knives seem to lacerate your brain
I’ve had my share, I’ll help you with the pain
You’re not alone