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Me & Mr Jones: Happy Birthday Bowie, 65 Golden Years

Simone Scott Warren reviews her relationship with the revered idol on his 65th birthday.

Posted 8th January 2012, 10:36am in Blogs by Simone Scott Warren
Simone Scott Warren

Simone Scott Warren

Writer

Me & Mr Jones: Happy Birthday Bowie, 65 Golden Years Jersey, 1983I have, for the very first time ever, been allowed to choose my own shoes. I've saved up two weeks' pocket money (10p a day, weekdays only) and maybe tricked my Nan a bit into letting me buy a pair of red patent slip on ballet shoes from Freeman Hardy Willis. They are a world of pretty and my mother is cross because she says they won't last two minutes, but I don't care, I am fuelled by the belief that if I wet them (by licking my hand and wiping it over the plastic), the shoes will magically remain scuff free. They are the prettiest shoes I have ever owned. But just as importantly, when I run outside to play, one of the local boys starts singing at me. “Let's dance! Put on your red shoes and dance the blues...”

This is so much better than last year, when Dexy's got to number one with 'Come On Eileen' and I wore dungarees to school.

Even at a ridiculously tender age, I am filled with the hope that being associated with David Bowie might make me cool. It won't. But I will have started two love affairs that will stay with me my whole life through; David Bowie, and shoes.

London, 2002 2nd October, Hammersmith Apollo, to be precise. The only way to get tickets for this gig was to queue outside the venue last month, but I live an hour outside London. Not that this is going to stop me, I leave home at just gone 3am, take my place in the queue and stand for hours in the cold, watching the day break, waiting for the box office to open. Someone comes along with numbers, and tells someone a few places behind me in the queue that they are unlikely to get tickets. As the door opens, a man near the front of the queue has a fit and is moved to safety, my first thought is not for his welfare, but instead for how gutted he's going to be to miss out on tickets. My own seats are in the gods, right at the top, right at the back, but that doesn't stop me spending most of my night with tears streaming down my face, as Bowie plays a three hour set sprinkled with Ziggy Stardust. It remains one of my all time favourite gigs.

St. Albans, 2012 – An open letter.Happy Birthday David. I had no idea what to get you, so I thought I'd write you a begging note. There's no other 65 year olds that we'd consider saying this to, but please, please, come back now. After a year during which music was dubbed as 'The New Boring' by Peter Robinson in The Guardian, there's never really been a period where we needed you more. After all, half of today's artists, obviously the more interesting half, they're busy ripping you off anyway. Every time we see someone reinvent themselves, every time a Plan B stands on stage and announces the retirement of their alter ego, the line gets drawn straight back to you, walking off at Hammersmith Odeon, breaking teenage hearts by killing off Ziggy.

And musical diversity, why, you practically invented it. Whether you were being glam rock, plastic soul, thin white duke, or that flirtation with drum 'n' bass, you may have been challenging at times, but you were never, ever, dull. Kevin Rowland, Nicky Wire, Evan Dando, prancing around in their best frocks? Take a look at the cover of the 'Man Who Sold The World' boys, now that's how you wear a dress. You basically invented androgyny in pop. And when everyone was busy welcoming back Suede last year, all it really did was give me a timely reminder of how much I missed you, of how much of your career had been wholesale appropriated by Anderson and co.

When you landed on TOTPs in the 70s, parents across the land worried that their children's minds would be forever corrupt by this creature – you don't find them wondering the same about Ed Sheeran. There was a genuine concern that with your different coloured eyes, you might really be an alien. Now, Lady Gaga might be trying to pretend to be from another planet, but there's no tabloid discussions over whether she is from Venus or Mars. But if you wanted, you could probably sue her, you know, for stealing your entire schtick.

You can argue with a lot of what drops out of a Gallagher's mouth, but when Noel was asked by Q last year which legend he wishes he'd seen, his response was spot on; “Bowie. He is the one person me and the missus would die to see. Led Zeppelin, Roses...they would be exciting. But I'd kill to see Bowie live. I know he hasn't been very well but we need him. He's just in a different league to everyone else." Because that's the thing, with the same bands headlining every festival going, over and over and over and over, even without releasing a note of new music, David, you know you could blow them all off the stage. And it's having an artist like that which pushes everyone else forward, gives everyone an impetus to just do a bit better.

Would it help if we all collectively said that we'd forgiven 'Tin Machine'? That we've tucked it quietly into the loft, it won't bother our record players again, and we'll say no more about it?

We need you back again, because you pushed all the musical boundaries, because you were so bloody innovative. Before anyone else had so much as considered the internet as anything more as somewhere to hide their porn (thus saving room under the bed), you'd already worked out how to use it to sell yourself, sell your music, sell your Bowie Bonds. Didn't you once promise us that nothing was gonna stop you in your golden years? Heart and health problems aside, the sorrowful rumour is that you've completely lost interest in music.

But here's the thing, we've never lost interest in you.
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