“Changes”, Hunky Dory, 1971
Darragh Dandurand
“So I turned myself to face me/But I’ve never caught a glimpse.” Lying in the grass on the hill behind my mother’s house, high from the summer heat of a summer night, I belted out the refrain from “Changes” over and over and over with my closest childhood friend. A hazy sunset filled the sky and we tried to live out that lost season for as long as our little, teenage fantasies lasted. At 14, we had no concept of how quickly the world was spinning. We were both raised by eccentrics who preferred paint-splattered kitchens covered in mock-ups and movie props over white-washed walls and sterile memories. David Bowie, like so many other rock gods we idolized, let us know we were going to be just fine in a world we didn’t understand outside the magical one we took for granted. How he lived, how he made, how he aged, how he died — David just kept glowing, he kept growing, he kept changing. He is some patron saint of lost souls and colorful kids trying to keep afloat. His words make a different sense to me now that I’ve been in it a bit longer. His lyrics make everything feel like there is a reason I have yet to reason, and a melody I have yet to hear, I just have to get around to listening a little better. Keep chasing that glimpse, Bowie. We all saw it.