Dear David,
God, I never wanted to write one of these so I've put it off for as long as possible. It’s been just over 6 months since you left us here on earth whilst you went upstairs and became another star for me to smile at, at night. I’ve got a lot to thank you for and this may take a while so apologies for interrupting your peace and quiet up there.
I can’t ever remember a time your music hasn’t been played in our household. In fact, the first song I ever remember hearing was ‘Starman’. Its my dad who’s been playing your music all my life and because of this, you’ve basically become one of the family. In 1974 you released ‘Diamond Dogs’ - this was roughly around the time that my Dad got into your music, he was 9 or 10 at the time. It’s weird to think that you’d already released 8 albums by that point and he’d only started getting into you. Your music and I guess, stage presence hooked him instantly and he was straight out to buy your vinyls. His favourite album is probably Ziggy Stardust (which is the same as me to be honest but I also have a very big soft spot for ‘The Man Who Sold The World’) My dad’s all time favourite song is Moonage Daydream which he absolutely slays when he plays it on guitar. Whilst most dads have pictures of their kids, pets or just the classic lock and home screens on their phones, my dad hasn’t which in turn makes him the coolest dad to ever grace the planet. His phone screens, for the past 6 to 7 years (since you can have a photo as your phone screen) has been your Ziggy Stardust album cover.
We have this tradition, which we’ve been doing for the past two years now; every time we go to London, the first night we get there we check into our hotel, unpack and then head to Heddon Street where we go and pose and take photos of the doorway and phone box where the Ziggy album cover was shot. We’re going down in six days and it’s going to be very bittersweet for us to take photos there.
2 months before you died, I lost my Gran and listening to your music made it easy for me to stay calm and power through as it took me to this whole other world that I still love to lose myself in. If you were to ask me what my favourite song of yours is, it would have to be Suffragette City. I saw your old producer and drummer perform it in June 2015 at the O2 ABC in Glasgow (which was an experience in itself) What dad and I can’t get over is the fact that less than a year later you’d leave us. To us, you were always going to be immortal. Since you’ve died it’s as if the world has gone to pot. I’m not saying you were the glue that was holding this insane planet together but.. I mean come on. Since you’ve gone we’ve lost some amazing stars like Alan Rickman, Christina Grimmie and Anton Yelchin, we’ve had so many terrorist attacks in places like Brussels, Turkey and Nice, a mass shooting in Orlando (50 dead and 53 injured on June 12th), England and Wales voting to leave the EU (Scotland and Northern Ireland voting to remain), getting a new Prime Minister we didn’t vote for and Trump is now officially the Republican candidate for the Presidency. I’m in no way saying that these wouldn’t have happened if you’d still been here, but I can’t help but tell myself that if I had a TARDIS and broke the laws of the universe and brought you back that the worst we’d have is some small incidents.
On Friday 28th November 2003 my dad got the chance of a lifetime, he was able to go see you live in the SECC in Glasgow with my mum. It was your ‘A Reality Tour’ and sadly, 6 months earlier his mum, my Gran Jean, had passed away. I was only 7 at the time so I was unable to attend the tour with my parents and I'm still oh so jealous of them to this day for having seen you in the flesh. That year was incredibly hard and stressful for us what with us losing my Gran Jean and the fact we were renting a house and also doing up the house we live in now which was just round the corner, but I know seeing your show and you made his year that little bit better.
On Christmas Day 2015 I got a beautiful light pink Crosley record player. I’d been eyeing them up for years after stumbling upon my dad’s, very impressive, vinyl collection. When I say he has all your music, I'm not joking (He has them all on Vinyl and CD and MP3 - He also owns your ‘Bowie The Video Collection’ on VHS) Anyway he asked which Vinyl’s I'd like and I asked for every single one of your he had. That night I put Ziggy Stardust on right away and rocked out. My dad came upstairs with this really sweet smile on his face and told me that when he was my age, or just a couple of years younger, he was doing the exact same thing as I was doing with the exact same copy of the vinyl I was listening to. Little did I know that 2 months later you were going to leave us.
So all I can say Bowie is that I thank you. I thank you for bringing your unique stage presence to the world, your touching and strangely relatable lyrics to us, for giving the world your sexuality in your early Ziggy days. Most of all, though, I'd like to thank you for being you because without you; my Dad would have had to resort to listening to the Rolling Stones. But seriously your music and just life, have given me and my dad this very special bond that is extremely special and will never be able to break. Losing you has broken the world's heart but I bet you’re living it up in the universe and until we meet upstairs I'll say see ya.
Laura. x
