When You Feel Like No One Loves You, David Bowie Does
Image Courtesy of the David Bowie Facebook Page // @davidbowie
More than 50 years have passed since David Bowie’s self-titled first album was released, and yet ‘The Man Who Fell to Earth’ hasn’t really gone anywhere.
One could attribute this to a number of things. There’s no doubt that his impact on the music industry is indelible; in a 2016 article published shortly after his death, Billboard posited that Bowie influenced more genres in Western music than any other rockstar. He released 27 studio albums, nine of which went number-one in the UK. His unique songwriting and performing prowess cemented his place as an icon of music history.
Underneath these critical accolades--and perhaps more meaningful--is the profound impact that Bowie’s music made and continues to make on those who listen. Thirty years before our generation was born, Bowie was singing about confusion, inertia, existential dread and feelings of alienation—all things that young people will always have to grapple with. It’s why his fanbase has stayed so strong across so many musical eras.
Image Courtesy of RecordMecca.com
From the minute he debuted his best-known persona, a fantastically outfitted alien god figure of ambiguous sexuality named Ziggy Stardust, Bowie gave people permission to be different through his own undeniable strangeness. He had a high voice that didn’t always sound perfect and a long, angular face. His eyes appeared to be two different colors (though they weren’t; one of his pupils was permanently dilated). He wasn’t afraid to play with gender presentation, rejecting traditional expectations of masculinity in favor of heavy makeup and fabulous clothing.
On many of his most well-loved songs, he seems to sing directly to anyone who’s ever been made to feel weird for how they look or act. On the 1974 track “Rebel Rebel,” over an instantly recognizable guitar riff, Bowie addresses a young protagonist whose mother is “not sure if [they’re] a boy or a girl.” He affectionately belts out “hot tramp, I love you so” at the end of the chorus, proclaiming his welcome of all such rebels.
“Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide,” the closing track of 1972’s “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars”, is a slow-building masterpiece that deserves an essay’s worth of unpacking. I’ll try to put my reading of it in brief. The song is Bowie’s explicit vow to be there for those who feel crushed by the discomfort and shame of growing up. He absolves the listener of that shame, assuring you that he’s been through the same. Having played this song in many moments of crisis, I can promise that hearing Bowie howl, “I’ve had my share, I’ll help you with the pain, you’re not alone” and “gimme your hands, ’cause you’re wonderful” makes it very hard to feel hopeless.
This palpable empathy for younger generations gives Bowie his staying power; members of those generations continue to find solace and understanding in his lyrics. “Changes,” off of Bowie’s 1971 album Hunky Dory, is an anthem for adolescents. It paints relatable themes of facing the strange, as well as including the anti-establishment lyric, “and these children that you spit on as they try to change their worlds.” But he also recognizes that sometimes our world is too much, and the orchestral majesty of songs like “Life On Mars,” “Moonage Daydream,” and “Space Oddity” provide the perfect escape from it.
My mom has been an avid Bowie fan for most of her life, and thus his music has been the soundtrack to much of my own life. “Rebel Rebel” was my first favorite song. I watched “Labyrinth” to death as a kid. Since then I’ve come into a new appreciation of his work, finding my own meaning in his words and melodies. To this day, Bowie feels oddly like a close family member to me, someone whose voice and face mean comfort and safety. It takes a tremendous amount of humanity for someone with that kind of star power and celebrity to connect with people like that.
I could easily go on about him for much longer than I have. I didn’t even get the chance to discuss how his music expressed climate anxiety four decades before climate change was a discussed issue, or how he embodied both permanence and impermanence through his many distinct personas, or the excellent absurdism that became part of his brand. But these attributes are not why Bowie is still important. The reason for that lies in the feeling that his music creates: that when no one in the world has your back, he will.