Time takes a cigarette

"All the way from Washington
Her bread-winner begs off the bathroom floor
We live for just these twenty years
Do we have to die for the fifty more?" - David Bowie, Young Americans

We've been waiting for the man for just over 10 years. This morning's new single, which you've surely heard 23 times by now and are really starting to 'dig' the last two minutes of, might even herald a full return to the world for a man who sold the world, and then deservedly put his feet up for a while. 

Cards, meet table: I fucking love David Bowie nowadays, but this hasn't always been the case. Back in the late Eighties, I acquired a step-brother, who at 13 years my senior was considerably more cultured in his musical taste than I. I was 13 when, on a whim, I joined him on a casual shopping trip on which he fervently sought out a copy of something called Outside. I was assured by my stepbrother that this represented a high watermark in my young life, and I should pay due attention. I did, with obvious results: Outside is horrible, and my burgeoning relationship with the Thin White Duke nearly ended there and then.

Mercifully for me, I persevered and on reaching university was a full convert.

  He has spent fully 50 years doing whatever he likes, and doing it so breathtakingly well (particularly between '69 and '74, but then again he was shit-hot between '78 and '81 too) that some people genuinely thought he wasn't from this planet. Like all of the true great pop pioneers, he evolved, changing his physical appearance, sonic palette and reference points seemingly on a whim; genuinely intrigued by the new and the avant-garde, Bowie drove new thinking in mainstream rock'n'roll.

Whatever he does next, it's bound to be the right thing.