The media has been - depending on which papers you read or websites you visit - aghast, fulsomely admiring, or just plain amazed that David Bowie has just released a new album and single at the ripe old age of 66.
OK, granted, he has had major heart problems, has not performed since 2006 or released any new music for nearly a decade, and is now known more for his reclusive lifestyle than for changing his hair and makeup evy other week, but still, is it so amazing that one of the most talented and in his day most prolific rock musicians of our age wants to make more music?
Even more extreme is the praise and opprobrium, about fifty percent each way, greeting the new single. It is alternately the worst song he has ever released, the product of a lost genius, a man deluded into thinking he still has what it takes; or the subject of laudation dripping with adjectives like elegiac, and phrases such as "like hearing King Arthur's voice from the cave."
Let's get this bit over quickly: having heard the song once, I like it: the words are poetic and the melody is haunting. But I have to say while it is undeniably and indisbutably Bowie, it is not his best work. Having said that, I am aware I am comparing it on one hearing to well known and well loved songs like Starman and Life on Mars. So I am quite prepared for it to grow on me on further listening.
But for now, that is my opinion - not worth the hype but not worth the insults hurled in its direction either.
More importantly, what I find difficult to understand is the media amazement that Bowie could have come out of what we had all assumed was a permanent retirement to record again.
Surely, music is, apart from his wife and children, the passion that has governed Bowie's life. He is a musician, first and foremost and is it therefore so surprising that he has one day got up, decided to jot a few Ideas down, come up with a few songs he thinks worth singing, then made his way - staggering on his zimmer frame if the media are to be believed, into the recording studio to warble the tunes into a microphone so that they can be preserved for posterity before he shuffles off this mortal coil?
Yes, there are those who are reading this foray back into the recording studio and the music charts as a swansong from a man who knows his end is near. Is he dying? they are asking, as if only the prospect of imminent demise would force him to release more music to be remembered by, or possibly with the foresight that his death would propel the album to the top of the charts and ensure maximum sales, thus providing his widow and daughter with a legacy.
But no, my view is he just wanted to share the songs he has written, like any artist - why DO people want to sing, dance, write? The creative impulse, which has beat unceasingly in Bowie's breast since the late sixties until he has (almost) reached his own late sixties.
And as for the idea that 66 is geriatric, I wonder if anyone has told Mick Jagger or Bob Dylan they should have given up the ghost at their advanced years?
The former is setting out with his compatriots on yet another tour, still strutting around the stage with his voice and physique in extremely good nick. The latter has just released another album, Tempest, which is worthy to be placed alongside any of his preceding work, and the last I heard he is still on his Never-Ending Tour. Without the aid of a Zimmer(man) frame. Sorry, just had to work that bad pun in.
I acknowledge that Mick and Bob have kept their careers going while Bowie has appeared to have left the music and performing world behind, but maybe that,s the mark of the great and talented artist - the music (or art, poetry, prose, whatever) keeps coming. And while some areas of the arts may demand a younger frame, such as dancing - though again Jagger seems to call that into question - singing, playing instruments and song writing are not solely the preserve of the young.
And the older songwriter has a message to convey that the younger writer cannot - not without the use of a high level of imagination anyway. They can speak of a long life, of looking back with nostalgia, sadness, joy or whatever emotion, on the past.
Bowie seems to be doing just that in his new song, as Dylan does at times on his new album. And it is wonderful to hear. Old musicians never die - they just keep singing till they can sing no more. Lets hope that day can be delayed as long as possible for these great talents.
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