Over the years, David Bowie has come into each of our lives in different ways. For me personally, it was at a younger age that I was first visited by him. I was only four years old when I heard one of his songs for the very first time.
Growing up, I used to sit with my mother in our workout room as she trained for various marathons all day. She always listened to music when she trained, so I was exposed to a lot of incredible '70s, '80s, and '90s rock at a young age. I didn’t ever really think too much of it because I was much too young to understand how impressive Slash’s guitar riffs were, or even the fact that “Queen” was actually a band, and not just one person. But I do remember exactly what I was doing on the day that I first heard the song “Heroes” by David Bowie.
I was sitting on a stair-stepper elliptical, pushing my entire 40-pound body onto one step as it slowly lowered itself to the ground. Then, a song came on. This 1977 classic sounded in some ways, exactly like every other song I had heard that day, but in another way, completely unique to itself. I think that was the day that I fell in love with music. I had no idea who was singing the song or what it was called, and eventually, I would forget about the man whose voice intrigued me so much. That is, until I saw him again a year later.
I was five years old, and my older sister was watching the movie “Labyrinth.” It was the first time I had ever seen the movie, and to be honest it scared me a little. With countless beastly creatures and an especially wicked antagonist played by Bowie himself, it was the closest thing to a scary movie that I had ever seen. But after watching the movie several more times, it became something of a favorite film of mine, and the character I had been so scared of eventually became one of my favorites. Although I still had no idea who this man was, I knew that I liked him.
A couple years later, I heard Bowie and Queen’s song “Under Pressure” for the first time. I was with my mother again, but this time we were in the car. She was driving me to my nanny’s house on her way to work, and as I (illegally) sat in the passenger seat, she sang the entire song to me while holding a fake microphone up to her mouth. I remember smiling the whole drive there, because in that moment my mother, David Bowie, and Freddie Mercury were my favorite people in the entire world. I still had no idea who this man was.
Fast forward to 2012, I was a sophomore in high school with a growing love for music; I just couldn’t get enough of it. Some of my favorite bands at the time were The Smiths, Tears for Fears, Dexy’s Midnight Runners, and anything else '80s. However, being the music addict I was, I wanted to know more. So naturally, I raided my mom’s closet and found her old stash of 45 rpm records. Aware that I had struck gold, I spent the entire day listening to every single vinyl, convinced that I would find something that spoke to me. That was the day that I found Bowie again.
Starstruck and a little infatuated, I began looking up anything and everything there was to know about this “David Bowie.” His revolutionizing music, his undeniably flawless acting, and his utterly inspiring impact on fashion. Through my research, I began to put all the pieces of the puzzle together one by one...
This was the man who taught me to listen, and really listen to music. This was the man who taught me that it is okay to love things that you also fear. This was the man who filled my eyes with admiration and love for all the good that exists in life.
David Bowie impacted my life in countless different ways. He influenced me, he spoke to me, and he taught me, even on the days that I didn’t know I was learning. For the past 19 years of my life, I have adored him.
So as each of us reflect on all the different ways he single-handedly changed our worlds forever, let us never forget the man who taught us all that we could be heroes.
Rest In Peace David Robert Jones (1947 – 2016)
