Starman

The news of David Bowie’s death yesterday was both sad and strange - but at least it made for a great morning’s radio whilst I was tidying up and getting ready for work. The Radio 6 Breakfast Show was still mixing things up a little but by the time Lauren Laverne came on at ten the playlist had been pretty much abandoned in favour of wall-to-wall Bowie. I ironed a shirt, she played ‘Letter to Hermione’, ‘Let’s Dance’ and ‘Fill Your Heart’ in one magic burst. I first got into Bowie in the early eighties, mainly because my soon-to-be-girlfriend (now wife) was a fan – she recalled how we swapped tapes after I’d acquired a copy of ‘Diamond Dogs’ (still my favourite album of his) from the Library – though prior to that I can recall how that video for ‘Ashes To Ashes’ seemed to be on ‘Top of the Pops’ pretty much every week in 1980. We went on a coach to see him in Manchester on the ‘Glass Spider’ tour in 1987 (but we can’t remember whether it was that one or the Rolling Stones gig where the bus broke down on the way and we were stranded for some time in a layby outside a Little Chef) and we were going to have ‘Wild is the Wind’ as the song for the first dance at our wedding before we realised that it lasted over seven minutes and plumped for something shorter (and by Elvis…) – it’s strange how as you get older you realise how one person’s music can run in and out of your life like a thread and sad to reflect how the person that created it gets cut off even though the music itself will run on…