And all the Somebody People

To mark the 4th Anniversary of the death of David Bowie (10th January)

There is a certain timelessness in classic rock and pop music.

It is a quality, an endearing and emotional one that is completely lacking in the over-produced anthems by talentless wannabees and one hit wonders of more recent years.

I can recall immediately, upon hearing a certain intro to a song from my youthful years in the 1960's and 1970's the exact situation and circumstances that I was in when I heard it for the first time.

My earliest memories revolve around such pop tunes as The Beatles and Penny Lane, Petula Clark's Downtown and the hits of The Seekers such as The Carnival is over.

Of course I could have heard them second hand rather than upon their respective releases in the mid to late 1960's although I firmly believe that as I was brought up in a very musical family, particularly on my Mother's side it is entirely possible that they will have been audible to my very infant ears.

Such great pieces of music and accompanying lyrics are deeply rooted in my hard wired memory and can be reactivated at the smallest prompt or by a familiar sight, sound, smell, taste or touch.

I am now in my mid 50's and to my own children let alone anyone younger I will be regarded as a bit of an oldie and yet there can be expressions of surprise when I take on the common subject of music and show what is a reasonable depth and breadth of knowledge and appreciation.

Some artists from my own teenage years are being listened to by the current generation largely as a consequence of parental influence and raids on record collections of their own parents and even grandparents.

I can reel off an impressive list of gigs that I have attended over the last 40 years including Bowie in 1983, U2 in 1981, The Stranglers 1980, The Jam 1979 and many, many more. I still attend now but principally to see performers before they pop their clogs.

For all of my own experiences of rock and pop I must admit that I was mightily confused by a conversation that I had with a 70 year old lady a couple of weeks ago.

To me, 70 has always been an ancient age.

Grandparents were always that age and there existed an enormous gulf in culture, tastes, etiquette, outlook, politics and musical genres across such a wide age difference and this mindset, for all of its ignorance and insensitivities persists with me even now,

I think our chat started off with the weather which is always a safe and non-contentious subject before suddenly turning to David Bowie.

I cannot remember the sequence of niceties and generalities that brought us around to Bowie.

I suppose it could be the new thing to replace that assumption that whatever topic you start out to discuss with someone it always ends up with Adolf Hitler.

The lady, a small frail figure but very heavily nicotine based, told me about her love of the artist and how she had been to many concerts in the 1970's and on one occasion had actually met the man.

I had a strong image of her in a hat and smart but modest attire and clutching her handbag when coming across Bowie in one of his creations such as Ziggy or The Thin White Duke.

In my minds eye she was then as she appeared in front of me now, an old lady.

That was of course completely disrespectful on my part.

If I had bothered to do any arithmetic to put some sense of time on my imagined scenes then I would have realised that, yes, the lady and Bowie were in fact born only 1 year apart.

His first commercial album release in his own name rather than David Jones was in 1967 when he was twenty years old.

At the peak of his first phase of performance perhaps his greatest fan had been and still was this senior citizen.

I came away from that brief meeting with a strong note to myself to be less quick to make judgements and sweeping assumptions about people and especially those of such unquestionable credibility in rock and pop.