It’s impossible to convey the moment I saw him sing this song on October 27, 1972, at Winterland, in similar makeup and similar spacesuit … I remember his hair being brighter red and his makeup whiter … it burned into me like a sun. He sang it much more passionately at Winterland than in this video, shot a year or so later.
As I wrote in my memoir …
Bowie and his acoustic twelve-string, in his brightly colored spacesuit, orange hair and kabuki make-up. Bowie under a single white pin spot, midway through the song and his voice soared, just him and his guitar, and I knew that we, perhaps two hundred lucky souls in that terribly empty auditorium, were in the presence of a singular, incandescent talent that would cleave the century, or at least my life, in two, with the surgical arc of a samurai sword or a Bowie knife.
My death waits like a beggar blind
Who sees the world through an unlit mind
Throw him a dime for the passing time
My death waits there between your thighs
Your cool fingers will close my eyes
Let’s not think of that and the passing time
My death waits to allow my friends
A few good times before it ends
So let’s drink to that and the passing time
But what ever lies behind the door
There is nothing much to do
Angel or devil, I don’t care
For in front of that door, there is you
Happy Birthday, David. We still miss you.
Leave a Reply