Listen for Bowie 1947-2016

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Bowie

When I saw my close college friend’s one-line Facebook post this morning–“Tell me it isn’t true”–somehow I knew that David Bowie had died. This friend had traveled the world following Bowie while I’ve only followed him in my car, in my mind… Still, since the early a.m., I’ve been thinking, and hearing, his beautiful song “Kooks” play like a soundtrack over my busy family and writing life. And I’ve thought of how each key phase of my own life has needed a Bowie song, benefited from one or another. Everyone knows and loves “Heroes,” of course. I took personal adult pride in grooving to his concept album “Outside,” and specifically “The Heart’s Filthy Lesson,” when I was 22 and in my first year of grad school down in Austin. I needed “Let’s Dance” to overcome a shitty breakup and have more stamina and commitment while jogging. And sometimes during a writing stint, I’ve needed Bowie’s amazing sense of freedom, his diehard shunning of the norm, of mediocre expectation, his freaky/true/fearless self-expression–in songs, for me, like “Suffragette City” and “Life on Mars.” Sometimes I’ve needed his compassion, so the duet with Freddie Mercury, “Under Pressure,” fit the emotional bill. Below, I’m pasting the lyrics to “Kooks” because they work like a poem. Tonight I’ll blast the tune for my young sons. Tell us your favorite Bowie song or line or album? Turn up the volume. Ziggie Stardust lives on.

Will you stay in our lovers’ story
If you stay you won’t be sorry
‘Cause we believe in you
Soon you’ll grow so take a chance
With a couple of Kooks
Hung up on romancing

Will you stay in our lovers’ story
If you stay you won’t be sorry
‘Cause we believe in you
Soon you’ll grow so take a chance
With a couple of Kooks
Hung up on romancing

We bought a lot of things
To keep you warm and dry
And a funny old crib on which the paint won’t dry
I bought you a pair of shoes
A trumpet you can blow
And a book of rules
On what to say to people
When they pick on you
‘Cause if you stay with us you’re gonna be pretty Kookie too

Will you stay in our lovers’ story
If you stay you won’t be sorry
‘Cause we believe in you
Soon you’ll grow so take a chance
With a couple of Kooks
Hung up on romancing

And if you ever have to go to school
Remember how they messed up
This old fool
Don’t pick fights with the bullies or the cads
‘Cause I’m not much cop at punching other people’s Dads
And if the homework brings you down
Then we’ll throw it on the fire
And take the car downtown

Will you stay in our lovers’ story
If you stay you won’t be sorry
‘Cause we believe in you
Soon you’ll grow so take a chance
With a couple of Kooks
Hung up on romancing

Will you stay in our lovers’ story
If you stay you won’t be sorry
‘Cause we believe in you
Soon you’ll grow so take a chance
With a couple of Kooks
Hung up on romancing

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