Dave Bidini is a member of Rheostatics
The first time I read the word "bisexual", it appeared in a magazine story about David Bowie. The word reminded me more of "biped" or "antipode" than "transexual" or "homosexual," other words that I learned because of David Bowie.
As a teenager growing up straight and white in a straight, white place living a straight, white life in a straight, white world, The Man Who Fell to Earth bent the view just so; a convex screen projecting an existence that moved out instead of in; forward instead of backward. Older kids in the school hallways passed around the rumours: David Bowie is a man with a vagina. No, I hear he is a woman with a penis. No, I hear he is an alien. No, I hear he has kids. No, really. Kids.
These conversations are hard to fathom in today's Gagascape, where sexual duplicity is a given, and where my children talk positively about gender fluidity the way I once talked about Harmon Killebrew's home-run swing. But in his time, David Bowie asked his fans a different kind of question: Who are you and what are you and why are you worrying so much about the answer? Staring at my bedroom wall papered almost exclusively with men holding guitars or microphones, I used to lie in bed wondering whether I was gay or half-gay or 20 per cent gay or "David Bowie gay", which was its own kind of thing. The singer, obviously, felt this, too: "Not sure if you're a boy or a girl." As a young FM radio hound, "Meet the new boss/same as the old boss" and "Maybe tomorrow the good Lord will take you away" were heavy lyrics in their own right, but neither reached the evolving heart of identity and teenagehood and lust and confusion the way Rebel Rebel or almost all of Ziggy Stardust did (or, my heavens, Changes).
In that magazine story, the writer talked about Mr. Bowie's then-wife, Angela, who, in fact, had encouraged the rock star to explore his gender multiplicity and desires, something that presented a whole new set of considerations: The singer has a wife? And the wife wants him to sleep with men? And to sleep with her? With Lou Reed? With Iggy Pop and Mick Jagger? I tried to decide whether any of this was intriguing or hot while listening to Kooks, a song about David and Angela as parents, which blurred everything even more.
David Bowie was an enlightened and positive and sensitive and feminine and kind figure at a time – the 1970s – when a boastful, macho frontman was the template for male artistic expression. "Emo" wasn't a word yet, but it's what he was. He took the cucumber from his pants and wagged it around like a wand; celebrating the freakishness of art and artists and misfits everywhere.
In the afterglow of his death – and it should be a glow since his music radiated across all channels and boundaries – people will talk about him as a starman or an alien or Ziggy Stardust or a bizarre confection who played up, perhaps even "branded," his sense of difference. But there was always enough groundedness in his words and music to cut through the distractions of trend or style, like the man on the street – holding an umbrella and wearing a trench coat, I always thought – in Suffragette City, who finds himself entranced and then dominated by the rising female principle.
More than the questions about one's gayness, the idea of enormously powerful and strong women was another thing that rang my bell. At a time when most dudes were singing about having sex with teenage vixens in the squalor of their backstage trailer, David Bowie wrote about how it felt to be held steady within a pair of crushing thighs. "She said she had to squeeze me, but she, and then she..." To a kid who had zero idea about sex and the world and the interaction between men and women, this presented a whole other tableau.
After Christmas, I bought a double A-side with Changes and Rebel Rebel on it – a $20-platter, which is probably as much as I've paid for something that will ultimately be carved away by the 1970s needle and tone arm in my jukebox. Both songs, played back to back, are a Mardi Gras' of individuality and spirit and daring. In Changes, he sings that the kids are "quite aware of what they're going through," a sentiment that directly connects him to me and you and is as powerful as My Generation or Hail Hail Rock 'n' Roll! or Smells Like Teen Spirit when it comes to heroic gestures by beloved artists.
TV tributes and homages on social media will talk about him as a chameleon and artistic forerunner – but, for me, the lasting legacy of David Bowie is that he was an artist who cared about people and the world and, in his own way, tried to open it up so that the strange ones could feel a little bit better about who they were.
Under the pancake makeup and red rooster hair and white cloak and lightning bolt unitard and bandaged face, David Bowie was a mensch. In the end, you can't say anything better about someone you admire.