Goodbye STARM✩N

2016 got off to a tragic start with the news of David Bowie's death. Music journalist Eve Barlow is still reeling

I KEEP EXPERIENCING

Bowie’s death. The first time he died was the same moment for all of us, just two days after the release of his Blackstar album. A Sunday night for me in LA – a Monday morning in the UK. 10 January. I had just finished writing a report from the funeral of Motörhead frontman Lemmy, which I’d attended the day before. I made a quick dash outside for cereal and milk. By the time I got home, the news had broken. I plonked myself down, tears leaving make-up all over my face – a painting of grief and joy in celebration of a life that relentlessly inspired. Bowie changed everything before we knew he had to; he changed sound, he propelled vision, he altered language. I put on my favourite album,

Station To Station, and sat for hours – empty, the colour draining from the world. The milk never made it to the fridge.

Like I said, that was the first time I experienced Bowie’s death. It hit me hard again when I stumbled into a hotel lobby in Texas at 5.30am and Heroes was playing. It floored me every time I heard Let’s Dance in a club. I felt it whenever I passed Bowie’s star on the Walk of Fame. I became fixated with

Looking For Water from his 2003 album Reality during 2016’s most troubling moments. ‘Take my hand as we go down and down,’ offered Bowie. ‘I can’t breathe the air/can’t raise the fight/cos all we’ve got left is a beat in the night.’ Bowie’s endeavours are eternally current, rendering his absence impossible to accept. How can a star from the future be a twinkle in the past? Even in dying, David Bowie is still doing.