R.I.P David Bowie

I’m late on this one because, well, I was sleeping when the news began to trickle out, but I feel compelled to say something about the news that The Thin White Duke, Ziggy Stardust, The Goblin King himself, David Bowie has died at the age of 69 of, what else, fucking cancer. The news comes just days after the singer’s latest record, Blackstar, was released to almost universal critical acclaim. Hell, even I, who’ve been harsh on Bowie in the past, called the record “nearly perfect” on Facebook. And I was sober at the time. Kind of. Not sober enough to drive, but sober enough to remember the next day that I said it and not be terribly embarrassed. I meant it.

Anyway, Bowie’s influence as a pop artist is vast and far reaching and all that jazz. His influence is apparent in every important thing that’s happened in music since the mid-70’s and his stature as an artist is so monolithic that it’s easy to be intimidated by his legend. But I’ve always thought of David as a huge dork who just loved being weird and odd and strange weather he was making music or movies or flirting with being a Nazi or whatever.  I know everybody’s all sad and everything so I thought I just share a few of my favorite Bowie songs to help ease the pain. Here’s “The Laughing Gnome” from 1967:

And here’s a good one from Diamond Dogs in 1974:.

And here is the last song from Blackstar, which, again, is just superb.