David Bowie

David Bowie OAL
Bowie in Tinley Park, Illinois, during the Heathen Tour, 2002
Born	David Robert Jones (1947-01-08)8 January 1947 Brixton, London, England
Died	10 January 2016(2016-01-10) (aged 69) New York City, U.S.
Occupation	Singer songwriter actor
Years active	1962–2016
Spouse(s)	Angie Barnett ​ ( m. 1970; div. 1980) Iman ​ ( m. 1992)
Children	2, including Duncan Jones
Musical career
Genres	Art rock glam rock pop electronic experimental
Instruments	Vocals guitar keyboards saxophone harmonica
Labels	ISO RCA Virgin EMI Columbia Deram Mercury BMG Pye Vocalion Parlophone Ryko
Associated acts	Tin Machine The Hype The Riot Squad Arnold Corns Tony Visconti Carlos Alomar Iggy Pop Brian Eno Mick Ronson
Website	www.davidbowie.com

David Robert Jones (8 January 1947 – 10 January 2016), known professionally as David Bowie (/ˈboʊi/ BOH-ee), was an English singer-songwriter and actor. He was a leading figure in the music industry and is regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century. He was acclaimed by critics and musicians, particularly for his innovative work during the 1970s. His career was marked by reinvention and visual presentation, with his music and stagecraft having a significant impact on popular music. During his lifetime, his record sales, estimated at over 100 million records worldwide, made him one of the best-selling music artists of all time. In the UK, he was awarded ten platinum album certifications, eleven gold and eight silver, and released eleven number-one albums. In the US, he received five platinum and nine gold certifications. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996. Rolling Stone placed him among its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time and following his death in 2016, Bowie was dubbed "The Greatest Rock Star Ever" by the magazine.

Religion

Over the years, Bowie made numerous references to religions and to his evolving spirituality. Beginning in 1967, he became interested in Buddhism and considered becoming a Buddhist monk. After a few months' study at Tibet House in London, he was told by a Lama, "You don't want to be Buddhist. ... You should follow music." By 1975, Bowie admitted, "I felt totally, absolutely alone. And I probably was alone because I pretty much had abandoned God." In his will, Bowie stipulated that he be cremated and his ashes scattered in Bali "in accordance with the Buddhist rituals".

After Bowie married Iman in a private ceremony in 1992, he said they knew that their "real marriage, sanctified by God, had to happen in a church in Florence". Earlier that year, he knelt on stage at The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert and recited the Lord's Prayer before a television audience. Four days later, Bowie and Iman were married in Switzerland. Intending to move to Los Angeles, they flew in to search for a suitable property, but found themselves confined to their hotel, under curfew: the 1992 Los Angeles riots began the day they arrived. They settled in New York instead. In 1993, Bowie said he had an "undying" belief in the "unquestionable" existence of God. In a separate 1993 interview, while describing the genesis of the music for his album Black Tie White Noise, he said " … it was important for me to find something [musically] that also had no sort of representation of institutionalized and organized religion, of which I'm not a believer, I must make that clear." Interviewed in 2005, Bowie said whether God exists "is not a question that can be answered. ... I'm not quite an atheist and it worries me. There's that little bit that holds on: 'Well, I'm almost an atheist. Give me a couple of months. ... I've nearly got it right.'"

"Questioning [his] spiritual life [was] always ... germane" to Bowie's songwriting. The song "Station to Station" is "very much concerned with the Stations of the Cross"; the song also specifically references Kabbalah. Bowie called the album "extremely dark ... the nearest album to a magick treatise that I've written". Earthling showed "the abiding need in me to vacillate between atheism or a kind of gnosticism ... What I need is to find a balance, spiritually, with the way I live and my demise." Released shortly before his death, "Lazarus"—from his final album, Blackstar—began with the words, "Look up here, I'm in Heaven" while the rest of the album deals with other matters of mysticism and mortality.

Spiritual references

Following the passing away of Davide Bowie on January 10th 2016, Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, President of the Pontifical Council for Culture, wrote a tribute, published by the The Tablet on January 13th 2016, in which he makes references to a number of songs by David Bowie which reveal his spiritual journey in life.

Station to Station

Station to Station is the 10th studio album by English musician David Bowie, released on 23 January 1976 by RCA Records. In an album that reflected his darkest years Bowie, who five years previously in one of his lyrics had entrusted salvation to aliens, dedicated himself to the Stations of the Cross. He prayed, in the depths of his addictions and lacerating questions: “Lord, I kneel and offer you my word on a wing / And I’m trying hard to fit among your scheme of things.” (Word on a Wing).

Bowie admits that the song Word on a Wing was written out of a coke-addled spiritual despair that he experienced while filming the movie The Man Who Fell to Earth. In 1980 Bowie spoke of the song to NME, claiming "There were days of such psychological terror when making the Roeg film that I nearly started to approach my reborn, born again thing. It was the first time I'd really seriously thought about Christ and God in any depth, and 'Word on a Wing' was a protection. It did come as a complete revolt against elements that I found in the film. The passion in the song was genuine... something I needed to produce from within myself to safeguard myself against some of the situations I felt were happening on the film set."

From the time of this song, David Bowie starting wearing and wore for many years a small silver crucifix, as can be seen in a number of his performances.

Loving the Alien

Bowie sought to understand the meaning of prayer in Loving the Alien, a track from the album Tonight, released in 1984. He asks if our invocations to God hid truth within them, if religion was not believing – once again – only in an alien: “And your prayers they break the sky in two / You pray ’til the break of dawn.”

Bus Stop

The references in Bowie’s art and music to spirituality, often in anguish and torment, are more than can be counted, and were never excluded from his life. “I’m a young man at odds / With the bible / But I don’t pretend faith never works / When we’re down on our knees / Prayin’ at the bus stop,” he wrote in Bus Stop, one of the tracks on the album Tin Machine released in 1989.

I would be your slave

The arrival of Jesus on earth left Bowie with a mix of hope and incredulity. Yet he never abandoned that part of his soul, he never ceased asking for a sign from God: “Open up your heart to me / Show me who you are / And I would be your slave … Give me peace of mind at last / Show me all you are / Open up your heart to me” (I Would Be Your Slave from the album Heathen released in 2002).

Lazarus

Bowie in a deathbed, as depicted in the music video

Lazarus is a single released on December 17th 2015 as a digital download, making it the second single from his twenty-fifth studio album, Blackstar (2016). It is Bowie's last single to be released during his lifetime. The official music video, directed by Johan Renck, was released on January 7th 2016, three days before Bowie's death. Bowie never performed the song live. According to Bowie's producer Tony Visconti, the lyrics and video of "Lazarus" and other songs on the album were intended to be a self-epitaph, a commentary on Bowie's own impending death. The title of the song is a reference to the biblical Lazarus, a friend of Jesus who Jesus rose from the dead (John 11:1-30;11:31-45). In the music video, Bowie's face is wrapped in a cloth, as was Lazarus' according to the Gospel account.

On the day of David Bowie's passing away, Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi tweeted a quote from the song Space Oddity, released in 1969: "Ground Control to Major Tom / Commencing countdown, / engines on / Check ignition / and may God's love be with you".

External sources

• https://catholicpulseblog.typepad.com/catholic_pulse_blog/2013/05/is-there-hope-for-david-bowie.html
• https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2016/02/david-bowies-search-for-god
• http://aleteia.org/2016/01/15/pope-francis-and-david-bowie-an-unexpected-duet/
• http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2016/january-web-only/david-bowie-pulse-returns-to-prodigal.html