Bowie
The thing is, I've always been rather scornful of people mourning the deaths of public figures. Partly it's because I remember the craziness when Princess Diana died and we were all supposed to feel this vast outpouring of grief, but mainly I think it's been a feeling of intrusiveness. We didn't know those people. They weren't our friends or family. And it felt like, somehow, the legitimate private grief of those who did know those people, and who were their friends and family, was being appropriated and repurposed.
Bowie dying hit me fairly hard. The fact that it was just after such an excellent new record, a huge surge of "good grief, he's done it again". The Guardian guide's music critic reviewed the single and said "stop innovating, you maniac!". Then, two days later, he did. And in the car a couple of days ago I was playing old Bowie and "5 Years" came on and I burst into tears. Not because I knew him, but because the world is a less bright place, and we won't have any crazy innovative new music from him ever again.
So, anyway, late new year resolution, be kinder when people get upset and cry over the deaths of people they don't know. No, they didn't know them, but in turn I don't know what part of their lives those people, without even having met them, lit up and made special.
Bowie dying hit me fairly hard. The fact that it was just after such an excellent new record, a huge surge of "good grief, he's done it again". The Guardian guide's music critic reviewed the single and said "stop innovating, you maniac!". Then, two days later, he did. And in the car a couple of days ago I was playing old Bowie and "5 Years" came on and I burst into tears. Not because I knew him, but because the world is a less bright place, and we won't have any crazy innovative new music from him ever again.
So, anyway, late new year resolution, be kinder when people get upset and cry over the deaths of people they don't know. No, they didn't know them, but in turn I don't know what part of their lives those people, without even having met them, lit up and made special.