Lucy Jones: Happy birthday to the Thin White Duke who didn't feel the need to accept a knighthood
Daiv Bowie turns 65
DAVID Bowie, hero of 20th century pop music, turned 65 yesterday. It's only a few weeks since that lost BBC footage of his Jean Genie performance was unearthed by a cameraman, reminding us of – and introducing younger listeners to – this pop luminary.
What made David Bowie so good? Well, how long is a piece of string? You only have to look at pop music over the last 30 to 40 years to see his influence and inspiration on the artists who draw from him, or can't help but recapitulate his style. The success of his recording career, iced with collaborations with other visionaries such as Lou Reed and Iggy Pop, goes without saying. As does his musical talent and creative imagination.
But there are other gilding details. His sense of humour, for example, displayed in his cameo in popular children's show Spongebob Squarepants, and sending himself up in Dancing in the Street with Sir Mick. There's the humility and gratitude for his position – none of that smug posturing and sense of entitlement so many rock stars grow into. "But I've got to think of myself as the luckiest guy. Robert Johnson only had one album's worth of work as his legacy. That's all that life allowed him," he once said. And he was never afraid of complimenting other artists: "Frankly, I mean, sometimes the interpretations I've seen on some of the songs that I've written are a lot more interesting than the input that I put in."
The best example of this integrity was when he turned down a knighthood, saying simply: "I would never have any intention of accepting anything like that. I seriously don't know what it's for. It's not what I spent my life working for". Instead, after a health scare, he went into semi-retirement, living with his wife Iman.
Innovating constantly, Bowie made brilliant music through the 90s, dipping into drum 'n' bass and jungle on album Earthling, composing music for computer games, always confounding expectations – and then touring the world in 2003. I was lucky enough to be at the Wembley Arena concert which led to an obsession, a Bowie mullet ( I even brought a picture from Labyrinth into the hairdresser), a new joy in dressing up as Ziggy Stardust and frock coats and bipperty-bopperty hats.
Perhaps that sums up the magnetism of Bowie: so many people wanted to be him because they could identify with him. He was a professional chameleon with intellectual depth and honesty, telling people, girls, guys, gays, kooks it was OK to be themselves. Hot tramps, he loved them so. Children driving their Mamas and Papas insane, it was normal. Rock 'n' roll walking suicides weren't alone and nor were those searching a divine scheme of things. Mummy is yelling no? Escape to Mars. Work's down the drain? Go to Suffragette City.
"I wanted to prove the sustaining power of music," said Bowie once. He achieved his aim – perhaps more than any other British pop star of the 20th Century.
Happy Birthday Bowie.
© Telegraph.co.uk
