British Rock Legend David Bowie Dies

British rock musician David Bowie has passed away of cancer at age 69.  He was known in his early fame for his flamboyant onstage performance of Ziggy Stardust, his alter ego...at least until his 1980 song and video Ashes to Ashes finally laid that character to rest.  In the late 1960s he changed his last name to Bowie when he realized that David "Davy" Jones of the Monkees and he shared the same name.  The first time I heard anything of his was on South Miami's 790/WFUN radio station around 1970 or 1971, when they played Space Oddity...it blew me away.  That song, which initially was generally ignored by stations at its first release in 1969, was reissued in 1973 and finally enjoyed its deserved popularity...it is one of the two great songs of Bowie that I love.  The other great David Bowie song...here I'm just speaking of my own opinion...is Changes, released in 1971 and then again in 1975.  This song is one of the all-time greats, with very compelling lyrics speaking of youth, introspection...and inevitable aging.  Brilliant...I remember singing it to myself when I would go running long distances back in early '75 around the old three-mile perimeter block that my old high school and the adjacent community college was situated on.  Bowie would later produce a string of popular singles and best-selling albums, but although I generally liked them (with the notable exception of his inexplicably popular song Fame), they didn't resonate with me very much just the same.  Oh, there's one other song I liked a lot with which he was involved: the late 70s collaboration he did with the group Queen, titled Under Pressure...

I understand that David Bowie, even in his death, has a new album out...I'm sure that the songs on it are good as I have heard some positive reactions to it already in the media.  But I have to admit that he had already summed up everything quite well with that early song Changes.  So long, David...