Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/627675
25 maltatoday, SUNDAY, 17 JANUARY 2016 Opinion remains the enigma from another world… the one who can't fit in, but just drifts endlessly in a parallel universe of his own. In 'Heroes', he tells us that the 'scene was on the other side'. In 'Sons of the Silent Age', people no longer walk, but " just glide in and out of life". In 'DJ' (Lodger), Bowie muses what his 'gal' might be doing out there, while he himself is stuck in yet another tin- can – the DJ booth. "Maybe she's dancing. What do I know?" In all incarnations, there is an invisible barrier that separates David Bowie from the rest of us on that blue planet below. In Lady Stardust, he "sighs sadly for a love that [he] could not obey". And oh, how they all stared at this creature fair, when he first irrupted onto British television with 'Starman' on Top of the Pops… To my mind, the most haunting of these images can be felt throughout the entire album that most eloquently expresses Bowie's endless drift through this forlorn, hopeless wasteland called 'existence'. On 'Low' – recorded, like Heroes, with Brian Eno and Tony Visconti in divided Berlin, mid-1970s – David Bowie describes the sensation of "going round and round the hotel garage… must have been touching close to 94… but I'm always crashing in the same car…" There is a sense of exhilaration, but also futility. It is a distant future echo of the condemned boy's ironic boast on "Wild-Eyed Boy from Freecloud" (Space Oddity): "You'll lose me, but I'm always really free!"… as the same, circular chord progression drones on endlessly in the background. In the end, the wild-eyed boy is indeed rescued from the gallows to return to his beloved mountain. But if he is 'free', it is only to desolately "kick back the pebbles on the Freecloud mountain track." It is a harrowing image, and as might be expected – for Bowie was consistent beneath his endless shapeshifting – it is also the last image of himself he actually left us with. The 'Lazarus' video ends with a final withdrawal, at the natural end of a transitory existence, into a dark wardrobe in the corner. "I've got scars that can't be seen, I've got drama, can't be stolen. Everybody knows me now…" It is true that I feel I know him a little better now that he's dead. And that alone makes an extraordinary end to what can only be described as an extraordinary career. Perhaps the most astonishing thing about this posthumous re-immersion into Bowieland is how strangely positive the experience feels, for all the underlying gloom of the lyrics. He somehow managed to translate all that into music that was light years ahead of its time, profoundly inspirational and almost epoch-defining. (I, for one, have yet to hear a more resonant echo of the 1970s than 'All the Young Dudes'…, which he didn't even write for himself…). Earlier comparisons to great poets may have been misplaced – on the level of lyrics alone. But put the whole package together – including the musical innovation, and the broader impact on fashion, visual arts, etc – and we can certainly talk of David Bowie as a cultural phenomenon along similar lines. Like other great artists before him, he left an unmistakable imprint of his own. The last thing he left us with is the one that has most resonance, to anyone who likewise feels like he's "always crashing in the same car". As with all Bowie's lifetime accomplishments, it was not so much the fact that he went that is remarkable. It is the way that he went. I, personally, do not know how I would react if told I had 18 months to live. For David Bowie, the answer was to record a final album – thus placing his own affirmation on the death warrant, and appropriating it as his last curtain call – and to bow out gracefully without any fuss. No funeral service, no public ceremony… just the last draw on that cigarette handed to him by Time at the beginning of 'Rock N Roll Suicide', before quietly stubbing it out. What a way to go… I, personally, do not know how I would react if told I had 18 months to live. For David Bowie the answer was to record a final album, and to bow out gracefully without any fuss T E A T R U M A N O E L M A L T A T E A T R U M A N O E L 2016 www.vallettabaroquefestival.com.mt www.teatrumanoel.com.mt 16 th to 30 th January 2016 Valletta, Malta's Baroque Capital City and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, hosts the fourth edition of this unique baroque music festival in its Teatru Manoel, baroque churches and palaces. 1105. Teatru - Baroque Festival 2016 - 10x24.5 Advert.indd 1 15/12/2015 12:51