Thank you David, Ziggy and co

The 69-year-old artist lost his battle to cancer but won an entire generation

KARACHI: They say only the good die young. David Robert Jones, or David Bowie as you and I know him, was neither good nor young when he succumbed to an 18-month cancer battle at the age of 69 on Monday. But he leaves behind a legacy that no man — good or evil, young or old — can ever hope to match.

Bowie’s talent was there for all to see from a very young age and it came as little surprise to those who knew him back then when he made his breakthrough into the mainstream with the still popular song Space Oddity in 1969.

Next year came the iconic third album Man Who Sold The World, tackling mental sicknesses, but it wasn’t until 1973 and the fittingly named Ziggy Stardust that Bowie reached stratospheric fame and recognition.



Never a man to shy away from the limelight — his first two albums were both named David Bowie — the man from London’s Brixton district caught everyone’s attention with his bright red hair, glittered and made up face, and flamboyant clothes. Many believe the roots of glam rock can be traced back to Bowie and his first alter ego Ziggy.

But his influence on music transcends one genre, or one era, or even one planet. And so was born the slogan,“There is old wave, there is new wave, and there is Bowie.”

Not satisfied with leaving an irrefutable mark on the music industry, Bowie was also an award-winning actor in a career that spanned almost 30 years and 20 films.



Bowie had the delectable gift of keeping his fans guessing about who he was. Whenever they figured him out, he had morphed into something else. His Wikipedia page lists him down as a singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, record producer, arranger, painter, and actor. “I re-invented my image so many times that I’m in denial that I was originally an overweight Korean woman,” he said.

“One of my biggest heroes in music has been David Bowie,” said Tool and APC vocalist Maynard James Keenan. “He’s said, `I’m going to be a painter now, or I’m going to do some films,’ and his audience is very forgiving, because they understand him as an artist. Whether you agree or like the result, you respect that he’s expressing his artistic feelings.”

Perhaps all along, Bowie was just running away from the demons that plagued him. Confused about his sexuality his entire life, Bowie described himself as gay, bisexual and a ‘closet heterosexual’ in different phases of his life.

His ex-wife Angie claimed Bowie had an affair with Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger. Angie reportedly once walked in on Bowie and Jagger lying together naked in bed. The incident is believed to have resulted in the Rolling Stones song Angie.



Bowie was one of the few artists to ever speak up about the discrimination and alienation faced by bisexual men in the industry.

“I don’t know where I’m going from here, but I promise it won’t be boring,” and his entire life he lived up to that promise.

What set him aside from every other artist in recorded history was that he never shied away from a challenge. He took it all on and almost every single time, he won. It is maybe fitting then that perhaps the only battle he ever lost was his final one.

“I always had a repulsive need to be something more than human,” Bowie once said. And he was more than that. He was Ziggy Stardust, he was The Man Who Sold the World, he was the Disco King, he was The Thin White Duke, he was Nikola Tesla; he was the artist who inspired an entire generation.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 12^th, 2016.

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