'David'

"Jimmy's guitar sound, jealousies scream, waiting at the lights, know what I mean," someone wrote on my English jotter.

It was 1982, not long after David Bowie penned Scary Monsters (from whence these lyrics derived), and not long before he embarked on his Serious Moonlight tour to promote his 'pop' album, Let's Dance.

As an eleven year old, I think I nurtured a belief that our paths would somehow cross. Like so many at the time, I felt such a strong affiliation with his music and - to the detriment of my boyhood image - I attempted to follow his fashion.

For a while, I thought I was Bowie. Not literally, I suppose. But I harboured a desire to sing like him, compose, write or create like him. And I believed I could realise that dream if I waited long enough and met the right record producer. Neither of those things happened, of course, but it helped get me through my youth. Mostly.

Then last week, he died.

I'm not entirely sure how to process his passing. He's been there, making music 'for me' since a time before I was born. A few people have said, since his death, that they just always expected him to be there. I'm one of those people, I guess.

I realised in buying his most recent creation, Blackstar, that I have every studio album he's ever made. Most are on CD, but many co-exist in more traditional media; vinyl and cassette.

I missed him on his Serious Moonlight tour in Edinburgh in 1983 on the grounds that I was "too young," as my older siblings put it (not wanting to part with any of the tickets they'd managed to scrounge). I did manage to see him three times after that, twice doing his own thing and once with Tin Machine. I remember getting annoyed at people when they reviewed the Tin Machine gig, saying they were 'disappointed' he hadn't done any of his own stuff. I was clear on that point when I queued to buy the tickets in the early hours one Saturday morning in Livingston. Indeed, not playing his 'own stuff' on that tour was the whole point.

That was just the phase he was going through.

I wasn't an obsessive fan. I don't have every import, every bootleg, and I haven't read every book.

There are, perhaps, only three types of people: those who were obsessed with Bowie, those who were captivated by him, and those who just 'liked' Bowie. This last camp includes those who just liked the odd song, but still had a general awareness of his ever-present creativity.

I was (am) somewhere in the middle. 

I've never met anyone who could convincingly say they didn't like anything he'd ever done. Musically, that would leave you with a very narrow field, given just how many genres are represented amidst his 25 or so studio albums.

And of course he was an actor and appeared in a number of acclaimed films; most memorably, perhaps, The Man Who Fell to Earth. A role that appeared to be made for him. Made about him.

I did go to see the 'David Bowie is' exhibition at London's V&A Museum a couple of years ago. It was an extraordinary catalogue of his career; a catalogue that he himself had conceived. Somehow, he'd foreseen that the scrap of note-paper upon which he'd scribbled the antics of Ziggy Stardust would one day be of interest to people.

I had stared at that for a while, wondering what he was actually thinking at the time. I still do. His musical interest in outer space was the art to rival many an astronomer's science.

Seven long winding tracks; his last album, Blackstar, reminds me a little of Station to Station, where each song sounded like a medley of ideas assembled in perfect harmony.

Indeed, that was often his way. 

As many people have now said, it's clear it was written by a man who was acutely aware of his own impending mortality. It's undoubtedly a dark album. Creatively unpredictable and deeply moving, in no small part of course down to the context within which we now listen to it. The metaphors move swiftly from subtle to blatant and at times that's difficult to listen to; difficult because it's upsetting to hear someone saying goodbye, forever.

David Bowie commanded a very prominent public image and was known to all but the most remote of our seven billion dwellers on this planet. Equally, he was deeply private, somehow managing to conceal the making of his penultimate album which he announced on his 67th birthday. Subsequently, and remarkably, sharing news of his secret malignant killer with only his closest friends and family.

On his 69th birthday, we were expecting the album, but we didn't know he was in his final few days.

His private and almost anonymous cremation a few days later summed up his enduring ability to do things his way. By his design.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if he recorded more material for future release. Such rumours abound. Either way, he leaves us with a musical catalogue as extensive and diverse as anyone could ever need.

I never did meet him, in the end. But, to this day, I don't know who wrote those lyrics on my school book.

Perhaps it was David.

Rest in peace, Starman.