Where were you when you heard David Bowie had died?

By: David Sanderson Posted: 8:29 PM CST Monday, Jan. 11, 2016

I’m not on Twitter. I’m not on Facebook. Truth be told, I don’t even own a cellphone. Never have. So you can excuse me for wondering what the hell my 18-year-old son was doing in the kitchen at 7 a.m. Monday morning, waking up the house with Bowie’s Heroes, a tune he fell in love with a couple of years ago after hearing it featured in the teen flick The Fault In Our Stars.

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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 11/01/2016 (3903 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Then I turned on my computer (yes, I own a computer) and there was the news (oh boy). Bowie, dead at 69.

I’ve been a Bowie fan since 1976, the year I marched into my barbershop with a copy of Changesonebowie under my arm and asked Fern Legros, a fellow who’d been cutting my hair since I was 12, to “make me look like this,” showing him the cover. He gave it his best shot. I was still a fan the next year when I picked up Low, the first of the singer’s late-1970s collaborations with Brian Eno. Gotta admit, at the time, me no like. I was 15; back then, England Dan and John Ford Coley spent as much time on my turntable as the Thin White Duke and Low, which was decidedly non-commercial, failed to resonate.

David Bowie died Monday after a battle with cancer. He was 69.

I’m glad I grew to adore it. Because when my son continued calling up Bowie’s greatest hits on his phone Monday morning ‚— Suffragette City, Fame, Under Pressure — I made a point of taking him downstairs where 33 Bowie LPs (and one by Tin Machine) are filed in alphabetical and chronological order, amid another 6,000 rock and roll remnants of my youth. “Start here,” I told him, handing him Low, then Heroes, then Lodger. “Then work your way back,” I went on, pulling out The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust. “And these, too — these are unbelievable,” I said, reaching for Station to Station and Hunky Dory.

I saw Bowie once, in Edmonton during the Serious Moonlight tour. Canuck band Rough Trade was slated to open the Winnipeg show and my buddies and I thought it was worth three days on a bus, there and back, to see a bill featuring The Tubes and Peter Gabriel instead. It was.

I remember where I was when Keith Moon died. I remember where I was when John Lennon was killed. And I’ll remember where I was Monday morning, too — listening to my son belting out, “I will be king… and you will be queen” at the top of his lungs, while preparing an omelette.

David Sanderson

Dave Sanderson was born in Regina but please, don’t hold that against him.

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David Sanderson

Dave Sanderson was born in Regina but please, don’t hold that against him.

Read full biography

Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber.

Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.