‘GIMME YOUR HANDS’ #DAVIDBOWIE

I can’t quite believe that it’s three years since David Bowie died. I don’t know what he would have made of the state of the world right now, the rise of the right wing, Trump, Brexit, the increasing racism and intolerance in the world. I think it would have broken his heart – he was all about inclusion and diversity and being yourself, whatever others thought. We seem to be going back to a world of conformity, intolerance, prejudice and hate. I hope it’s the last death throes of those who are desperately kicking back through their fear of what they don’t know and don’t understand and hopefully we’ll come out the other end, better, stronger, more tolerant, more inclusive.

I was so worried about sharing this post back in 2016, but the responses were wonderful. I’m sharing it again, partly to remind myself of what Bowie meant to me, and to remember that whatever happens in the world, however dark it gets, there is beauty, and light, and music and art and love and compassion and belonging. 

Posted 15th January 2016

I’ve thought long and hard about writing this post. I’m quite a private person, and I don’t like to use this blog to express my personal feelings or thoughts to any great extent (although I have made exceptions in the past). And my blog is also there for my business – and I like to be professional. Also, I feel as though in some way I’m intruding on someone else’s grief, selfishly indulging in feelings that aren’t really mine to have or to share. But I’ve had this post buzzing round my head, refusing to go away. So, here goes…

I was a very strange teenager. Awkward, lanky, insecure, painfully shy of others and cripplingly terrified of their opinions of me. My family and the few friends I had at the time would probably be quite surprised to hear this, but what goes on on the surface isn’t always the same as the turmoil that’s raging beneath. I knew I was ugly, gawky, weird. I had strange thoughts and compulsions, strange fears (that I now know are OCD). I didn’t fit in, had very few close friends. School was an absolute torture. I was desperately unhappy, most of the time.

My tastes in music were quite pedestrian. I was a Duranie, in love with John Taylor and convinced one day I’d marry him and be taken away from all this misery. I liked their music, still do, but it wasn’t really about that. Then in 1985, I watched Live Aid. I was aware of David Bowie, liked some of his stuff, but we weren’t a very musical household, so other than my sister buying ‘Ashes to Ashes’ in 1980, he wasn’t really on my radar.

That changed that day in 1985. He blew me away. Those songs literally changed me – ‘TVC15’, ‘Rebel Rebel’, ‘Modern Love’ and, of course, ‘Heroes’. The following Monday I bought ‘Rebel Rebel’ and a few other singles – you could still buy singles then – and played them over and over. I remember one of the B-Sides was ‘Queen Bitch’. What a revelation of a song. I became obsessed.

Bowie became the focus of my life. I bought album after album whenever I could afford it. I watched his films (my poor mum sat through them all with me, even ‘The Man Who Fell to Earth’ – rather awkward). I read everything I could (actual books – no Google back then!). There was so much to listen to, so much to learn. I felt as though a whole new world had been opened up to me.

And it had. The beauty of this new obsession was that it led me to so many other things. Directly to Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Pixies and, through Ryuichi Sakamoto via ‘Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence’ to Japan, the band, not the country! Discovering these bands led me further. I started reading the NME and Melody Maker, discovering the back catalogue of The Smiths, who I adore still, and bands like Echo and the Bunnymen, The Cure, The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Sisters of Mercy, TheThe, Bauhaus. Band after band, song after song that seemed to speak directly to me, to understand me, to recognise how I felt. It was the beginning of a massive transformation.

As the eighties drew to a close, I began to change. I went to see Bowie in June 1987, the ‘Glass Spider’ tour. I was still a bit geeky, a bit unsure of myself, a bit frumpy and uncool. By the time I went to see him again on the ‘Sound and Vision’ tour in August 1990, I was about to leave home, having been accepted on a journalism course. I was a different person – black eyeliner, black lipstick, black fingernails, cut off Levi’s, Dr Martens, a Gene Loves Jezebel t-shirt. I was finding my way, gaining my confidence, accepting myself.

The following month I met the man who was to become my husband. He was obsessed with Bowie too. We discovered we’d been at the same two concerts. It felt like fate.

I’ve had my ups and downs over the years. As a family we’ve been through a lot – house moves, redundancies, the death of my mum from cancer. All the good things, all the good times, and all the bad things, the bad times spring to mind when I hear certain songs – more often than not a David Bowie song. At a family gathering on Boxing Day, my brother-in-law asked who we would meet, if we could meet anyone. Without a second’s hesitation, both Gary and I said ‘David Bowie’. And now that he’s gone, I can’t think of anyone else, anyone who has the same pull, the same aura, anyone who is anywhere near as interesting.

At 7 o’clock on Monday morning, Gary sent me a text saying simply ‘Bowie’s dead’. I didn’t know what to do except burst into tears. It felt surreal. It still does.

Yesterday, Gary and I went to the Bowie mural in Brixton (I’ve always been inordinately proud that I was born in Bromley in 1969 and so actually lived, for a few years, that close to the man himself!). This was weird for us. We don’t do that kind of thing. After all, we didn’t know him. It seems disrespectful to try and share in that grief. But we are grieving. He was a big part of our lives. It’s not an overstatement to say he changed music, he changed culture. He did. And it’s not an overstatement to say he changed my life. Because he really did. And reading some of the messages scrawled on the walls around the mural in Brixton, I wasn’t the only one. Those messages are some of the most touching, heartfelt and moving things I’ve ever read. Many people have quoted lyrics from his songs that meant something to them. For me, these are the words that really spoke to me at fifteen, and that remind me now that I don’t have to feel the way I did then:

Oh no love! You’re not alone
You’re watching yourself but you’re too unfair
You got your head all tangled up but if I could only
Make you care
Oh no love! You’re not alone
No matter what or who you’ve been
No matter when or where you’ve seen
All the knives seem to lacerate your brain
I’ve had my share, I’ll help you with the pain
You’re not alone

Just turn on with me and you’re not alone
Let’s turn on with me and you’re not alone (wonderful)
Let’s turn on and be not alone (wonderful)
Gimme your hands cause you’re wonderful (wonderful)
Gimme your hands cause you’re wonderful (wonderful)
Oh gimme your hands.

Photo Credit BrixtonBuzz

 

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The David Bowie Reading Challenge #TuesdayBookBlog #DBowieBooks #DavidBowie

It’s David Bowie’s birthday today, and since his death three years ago I’ve been intermittently taking part in the David Bowie reading challenge, which I first heard about here.

To be completely honest, I’ve not done too well – but the challenge has led me to read some wonderful books, and I’m determined to read more from the list this year.

Here are the books I’ve read so far with links to my reviews.

‘Nights at the Circus’ by Angela Carter

‘As I Lay Dying’ by Williams Faulkner

‘Room at the Top’ by John Braine

‘The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie’ by Muriel Spark

‘Billy Liar’ by Keith Waterhouse

‘Last Exit to Brooklyn’ by Hubert Selby Jr

‘1984’ by George Orwell

‘Fingersmith’ by Sarah Waters

‘Madame Bovary’ by Gustave Flaubert

You can find a complete list of the books here.

I’ve also read ‘Passing’ by Nella Larsen, and will post my review soon.

I do recommend the challenge – there are so many books out there, new and old, but there are books on this list that really are must reads and many are books that I’ve been meaning to read for years, so it’s a good way of focusing on that goal.

Do let me know if you’ve read any of the books on the list, and what you thought.

 

 

‘Nights at the Circus’ by Angela Carter #bookreview #ThrowbackThursday

Renee at It’s Book Talk began this meme to share old favourites and recommendations, and I discovered it through Between the Lines. ‘Nights at the Circus’ by Angela Carter is an amazing book, one that stays with you, and one of those very rare books that I’ve actually read more than once. I read it as part of the David Bowie reading challenge that I discovered on the  Scatterbooker blog.

Amazon.co.uk  Waterstones

Is Sophie Fevvers, toast of Europe’s capitals, part swan…or all fake?

Courted by the Prince of Wales and painted by Toulouse-Lautrec, she is an aerialiste extraordinaire and star of Colonel Kearney’s circus. She is also part woman, part swan. Jack Walser, an American journalist, is on a quest to discover the truth behind her identity. Dazzled by his love for her, and desperate for the scoop of a lifetime, Walser has no choice but to join the circus on its magical tour through turn-of-the-nineteenth-century London, St Petersburg and Siberia.

My goodness – what a fabulous lead character Carter has given us in Fevvers. Half woman, half swan, Sophie is the star of Colonel Kearney’s circus, travelling across the globe, followed by the enamoured journalist Walser, who becomes a clown in order to join her on her travels.

It’s hard to summarise this story – so I won’t even try. This book doesn’t follow a traditional structure but that doesn’t mean it’s hard to read. On the contrary, it’s enormously entertaining.

The settings are described vividly, magically, beautifully. The cast of characters are fantastically drawn – I have a particular soft-spot for Lizzie, Fevvers’ ‘mother’, closet activist, her magic handbag able to conjure any remedy for any occasion and as intriguing and delightful as Fevvers herself. Mignon, Samson, the Princess of Abyssinia, Buffo the Great and the wonderful Sybil the pig are all brought to life effortlessly. Their stories are a joy to read and their narratives intertwine with Sophie’s own story flawlessly.

The writing is assured, clever without being pretentious, lyrical in places. It’s a book I’ll remember for a long time – unforgettable, colourful, and chaotic. A masterpiece.

 

‘As I Lay Dying’ by William Faulkner #TuesdayBookBlog #DBowieBooks #BookReview

Amazon.co.uk   Amazon.com

The death and burial of Addie Bundren is told by members of her family, as they cart the coffin to Jefferson, Mississippi, to bury her among her people. And as the intense desires, fears and rivalries of the family are revealed in the vernacular of the Deep South, Faulkner presents a portrait of extraordinary power – as epic as the Old Testament, as American as Huckleberry Finn.

I read this book as part of the David Bowie Reading Challenge.

To my shame, this is the first Faulkner I’ve read. He’s another author that has been on the edge of my radar for years, but I’ve never got round to reading him, save for a few extracts given as examples when I was studying English Literature.

This is a classic that is really worthy of the name. It’s a deceptively simple tale – a woman dies and her family transport her body back to her home town to fulfil her dying wish. But Faulkner uses this journey to take his reader on a journey too, revealing bit by bit the relationships between Addie’s children and with their father – their rivalries, their jealousies, their fears, their hopes, their dreams.

The story to me though is in a way secondary to the writing. It is so, so well-crafted that it is almost awe-inspiring. That might sound over the top, but I had to keep stopping and re-reading, and reading out bits to my poor family because the sheer skill of the writing was so amazing.

That isn’t to say that the writing is complicated. It’s dense, yes, but dense with meaning. Faulkner offers a masterclass here in saying a lot with a few words and images. Every word has a point, has a place and is needed. Nothing is wasted.

Faulkner is a writer whose works are often studied, rather than simply read. And that’s a bit of a shame. It was lovely to read this simply for the pleasure of reading – and it really is an absolute pleasure to read. Five very big stars!

 

‘Room at the Top’ by John Braine #TuesdayBookBlog #BookReview #DBowieBooks

I read this as part of the David Bowie Reading Challenge.

Amazon.co.uk  Amazon.com

The Angry Young Men movement, featuring such stars as Kingsley Amis, is perfectly illustrated through the iconic figure of Joe Lampton. 

The ruthlessly ambitious Joe Lampton rises swiftly from the petty bureaucracy of local government into the unfamiliar world of inherited wealth, fast cars and glamorous women.

But the price of success is high, and betrayal and tragedy strike as Joe pursues his goals.

I’m very torn about this book. On the one hand, Joe’s frustration at the hand he has been dealt in life simply by the consequences of his birth is very easy to empathise with. He comes from a poor background, a dead-end town with no prospects and he wants to get on, to have the things that the middle and upper classes have.

On the other hand, I don’t feel this book has aged well – particularly in terms of the way the women are portrayed.

Joe is ambitious, and he moves to the middle-class town of Warley to take up a new job and to experience life and what it has to offer away from Dufton.

He meets and begins an affair with Alice, a married woman who seems to be fighting against the constraints placed on her sex, just as Joe is fighting the constraints placed on his class. He also begins a romance with the virginal Susan, daughter of a local businessman.

Joe seems to genuinely love Alice, but his feelings for Susan are mixed up with his desire to get to the top. He is using her and this is where the book loses its appeal for me.

I do understand that it is of its time, but still the portrayal of the female characters didn’t work for me. Alice is supposedly independent, intelligent and unconventional, yet she still allows Joe to treat her badly, is still needy. And Susan felt like a caricature of a young girl – whiny and spoilt and childish. She may well have these characteristics, but she would have worked better had she had some redeeming features.

It is an undoubtedly well-crafted and important book, and one that is significant in the Angry Young Men Movement. I’m glad I read it, but I can’t say that I enjoyed it.

‘The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie’ by Muriel Spark #DBowieBooks #TuesdayBookBlog #BookReview

I read ‘The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie’ as part of the David Bowie reading challenge that I first heard of on Jade Scatterbooker’s blog.

Amazon.co.uk   Amazon.com

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is Muriel Spark’s most significant and celebrated novel, and remains as dazzling as when it was first published in 1961.

Miss Jean Brodie is a teacher unlike any other, proud and cultured, enigmatic and freethinking; a romantic, with progressive, sometimes shocking ideas and aspirations for the girls in her charge. At the Marcia Blaine Academy she takes a select group of girls under her wing. Spellbound by Miss Brodie’s unconventional teaching, these devoted pupils form the Brodie set. But as the girls enter their teenage years and they become increasingly drawn in by Miss Brodie’s personal life, her ambitions for them take a startling and dark turn with devastating consequences.

This book has been on my radar for years, but for some reason I’ve never got round to it or seen the iconic film version. I have read Spark’s ‘The Driver’s Seat’ which was brilliant and strange and shocking, so I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this.

It’s also brilliant and strange and shocking. Spark is a writer who refuses to be bound by convention. She writes in the way she wants to write and this book is wonderful because of that. Miss Jean Brodie is one of the most fascinating characters I’ve ever read about, and the way she speaks and behaves are skilfully portrayed. The narrative moves back and forth, showing the teacher and her girls at various stages from when they are ten right through to when they are adults.

The way Brodie manipulates and influences the girls is shocking at times, as is the behaviour of the girls themselves (and some of the other teachers). And the casual cruelties, particularly directed at poor, unfortunate Mary, reveal so much about human relationships. The interactions between the characters also reveal a lot about the conventions and social issues of the time, in the years leading up to the Second World War.

The book is short but it packs so much in. The economy of the writing shows real skill. Spark manages to say a great deal in a few words – a lesson that many writers could do with learning. Her use of language is the epitome of every word having meaning. There are no whimsical meanderings here.

Intelligent, dark, subtle and skillful – genuinely a classic.

 

‘Nights at the Circus’ by Angela Carter #TuesdayBookBlog #BookReview #DBowieBooks

I read Angela Carter’s ‘Nights at the circus’ as part of the David Bowie reading challenge that I discovered on the fabulous Scatterbooker blog.

Amazon.co.uk   Amazon.com

Is Sophie Fevvers, toast of Europe’s capitals, part swan…or all fake?

Courted by the Prince of Wales and painted by Toulouse-Lautrec, she is an aerialiste extraordinaire and star of Colonel Kearney’s circus. She is also part woman, part swan. Jack Walser, an American journalist, is on a quest to discover the truth behind her identity. Dazzled by his love for her, and desperate for the scoop of a lifetime, Walser has no choice but to join the circus on its magical tour through turn-of-the-nineteenth-century London, St Petersburg and Siberia.

My goodness – what a fabulous lead character Carter has given us in Fevvers. Half woman, half swan, Sophie is the star of Colonel Kearney’s circus, travelling across the globe, followed by the enamoured journalist Walser, who becomes a clown in order to join her on her travels.

It’s hard to summarise this story – so I won’t even try. This book doesn’t follow a traditional structure but that doesn’t mean it’s hard to read. On the contrary, it’s enormously entertaining.

The settings are described vividly, magically, beautifully. The cast of characters are fantastically drawn – I have a particular soft-spot for Lizzie, Fevvers’ ‘mother’, closet activist, her magic handbag able to conjure any remedy for any occasion and as intriguing and delightful as Fevvers herself. Mignon, Samson, the Princess of Abyssinia, Buffo the Great and the wonderful Sybil the pig are all brought to life effortlessly. Their stories are a joy to read and their narratives intertwine with Sophie’s own story flawlessly.

The writing is assured, clever without being pretentious, lyrical in places. It’s a book I’ll remember for a long time – unforgettable, colourful, and chaotic. A masterpiece.

‘Last Exit to Brooklyn’ by Hubert Selby Jr. #TuesdayBookBlog #BookReview #DBowieBooks

I’m trying very hard to complete the David Bowie reading challenge that I discovered on the fabulous Scatterbooker blog. Many of the books on the list are classics that I’ve been meaning to read for a long time. ‘Last Exit to Brooklyn’ is one of those.

Amazon.co.uk   Amazon.com

Described by various reviewers as hellish and obscene, Last Exit to Brooklyn tells the stories of New Yorkers who at every turn confront the worst excesses in human nature. Yet there are moments of exquisite tenderness in these troubled lives. Georgette, the transvestite who falls in love with a callous hoodlum; Tralala, the conniving prostitute who plumbs the depths of sexual degradation; and Harry, the strike leader who hides his true desires behind a boorish masculinity, are unforgettable creations. Last Exit to Brooklyn was banned by British courts in 1967, a decision that was reversed the following year with the help of a number of writers and critics including Anthony Burgess and Frank Kermode.

This is an incredibly difficult book to read. The writing style in itself is very difficult to get to grips with. No speech marks, no commas, no apostrophes. But once you get used to that, there is a great depth and a great skill to Selby’s writing. It becomes a bit of a rollercoaster, or perhaps a car crash. It’s gruesome and nasty and unsettling in turns, but the narrative is written in such a way that it’s impossible to look away.

The narrative doesn’t follow the conventions of a novel. There’s no one story arc but rather a series of narratives concerning different characters, some connected, all set in the streets of Brooklyn in the 1950s. The book was released in 1964, and it shows. The depictions of racism, misogyny and homophobia and the language used are certainly shocking, at least to this modern reader. But this is the epitome of gritty realism. Unfortunately, you can well imagine these events happening, these attitudes being real.

It’s hard to like the characters, any of them. But you do feel a certain amount of sympathy; they’re trapped in their grim lives, lives that are diminished through violence and hate. You can see how these characters become who they are, how they are capable of what they do.

There are some truly horrifying moments in this book; I have to admit that there are some things I wish I hadn’t read. But am I glad I read it? Definitely. Selby has achieved something rare here. Would I recommend it? I’m not sure. You’ll need a strong stomach. There are no happy endings, no escapism, absolutely no joy.

‘Fingersmith’ by Sarah Waters #TuesdayBookBlog #BookReview #DBowieBooks

Amazon.co.uk   Amazon.com

London 1862. Sue Trinder, orphaned at birth, grows up among petty thieves – fingersmiths – under the rough but loving care of Mrs Sucksby and her ‘family’. But from the moment she draws breath, Sue’s fate is linked to that of another orphan growing up in a gloomy mansion not too many miles away.

I re-read ‘Fingersmith’ as part of the David Bowie reading challenge that I first heard of on Scatterbooker’s blog. It wasn’t as if I needed an excuse though. I adored this when I first read it several years ago, and reading it again has only made me love it more.

Telling the story of Sue Trinder, an orphan brought up in a house of fingersmiths, the novel takes you from a compellingly dark and skilfully drawn Victorian London, to the countryside, where Sue is to be heiress Maud Lilly’s maid. This is all part of Richard ‘Gentleman’ Rivers’ plan to defraud poor Maud. Maud’s guardian, Uncle Christopher, a collector of erotica, controls her every move, and under these suffocating circumstances, the girls become intimate and Sue has her doubts about Rivers’ plan. Up until now we have been in Sue’s story, but we now switch to Maud’s point of view and the plot thickens. Who, exactly, is conning who?

There are some disturbing aspects to this novel – particularly creepy Uncle Christopher, but these add to the atmosphere that Waters so carefully and cleverly creates. The characters are fully formed, interesting and believable and the twists and turns will have you desperate to read on. The depictions of Victorian London are wonderful, beautifully atmospheric. To put it simply, it’s a damn good story! I hate clichés but once you turn the first page, this is very hard to put down.

When I went to post my review on Amazon, I saw this comment from another reviewer that struck such a chord, I had to include it in my own review:

‘I envy you that have yet to read this…’

Precisely.

‘Gimme Your Hands’ #DavidBowie

I’ve thought long and hard about writing this post. I’m quite a private person, and I don’t like to use this blog to express my personal feelings or thoughts to any great extent (although I have made exceptions in the past). And my blog is also there for my business – and I like to be professional. Also, I feel as though in some way I’m intruding on someone else’s grief, selfishly indulging in feelings that aren’t really mine to have or to share. But I’ve had this post buzzing round my head, refusing to go away. So, here goes…

I was a very strange teenager. Awkward, lanky, insecure, painfully shy of others and cripplingly terrified of their opinions of me. My family and the few friends I had at the time would probably be quite surprised to hear this, but what goes on on the surface isn’t always the same as the turmoil that’s raging beneath. I knew I was ugly, gawky, weird. I had strange thoughts and compulsions, strange fears (that I now know are OCD). I didn’t fit in, had very few close friends. School was an absolute torture. I was desperately unhappy, most of the time.

My tastes in music were quite pedestrian. I was a Duranie, in love with John Taylor and convinced one day I’d marry him and be taken away from all this misery. I liked their music, still do, but it wasn’t really about that. Then in 1985, I watched Live Aid. I was aware of David Bowie, liked some of his stuff, but we weren’t a very musical household, so other than my sister buying ‘Ashes to Ashes’ in 1980, he wasn’t really on my radar.

That changed that day in 1985. He blew me away. Those songs literally changed me – ‘TVC15’, ‘Rebel Rebel’, ‘Modern Love’ and, of course, ‘Heroes’. The following Monday I bought ‘Rebel Rebel’ and a few other singles – you could still buy singles then – and played them over and over. I remember one of the B-Sides was ‘Queen Bitch’. What a revelation of a song. I became obsessed.

Bowie became the focus of my life. I bought album after album whenever I could afford it. I watched his films (my poor mum sat through them all with me, even ‘The Man Who Fell to Earth’ – rather awkward). I read everything I could (actual books – no Google back then!). There was so much to listen to, so much to learn. I felt as though a whole new world had been opened up to me.

And it had. The beauty of this new obsession was that it led me to so many other things. Directly to Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, Pixies and, through Ryuichi Sakamoto via ‘Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence’ to Japan, the band, not the country! Discovering these bands led me further. I started reading the NME and Melody Maker, discovering the back catalogue of The Smiths, who I adore still, and bands like Echo and the Bunnymen, The Cure, The Jesus and Mary Chain, The Sisters of Mercy, TheThe, Bauhaus. Band after band, song after song that seemed to speak directly to me, to understand me, to recognise how I felt. It was the beginning of a massive transformation.

As the eighties drew to a close, I began to change. I went to see Bowie in June 1987, the ‘Glass Spider’ tour. I was still a bit geeky, a bit unsure of myself, a bit frumpy and uncool. By the time I went to see him again on the ‘Sound and Vision’ tour in August 1990, I was about to leave home, having been accepted on a journalism course. I was a different person – black eyeliner, black lipstick, black fingernails, cut off Levi’s, Dr Martens, a Gene Loves Jezebel t-shirt. I was finding my way, gaining my confidence, accepting myself.

The following month I met the man who was to become my husband. He was obsessed with Bowie too. We discovered we’d been at the same two concerts. It felt like fate.

I’ve had my ups and downs over the years. As a family we’ve been through a lot – house moves, redundancies, the death of my mum from cancer. All the good things, all the good times, and all the bad things, the bad times spring to mind when I hear certain songs – more often than not a David Bowie song. At a family gathering on Boxing Day, my brother-in-law asked who we would meet, if we could meet anyone. Without a second’s hesitation, both Gary and I said ‘David Bowie’. And now that he’s gone, I can’t think of anyone else, anyone who has the same pull, the same aura, anyone who is anywhere near as interesting.

At 7 o’clock on Monday morning, Gary sent me a text saying simply ‘Bowie’s dead’. I didn’t know what to do except burst into tears. It felt surreal. It still does.

Yesterday, Gary and I went to the Bowie mural in Brixton (I’ve always been inordinately proud that I was born in Bromley in 1969 and so actually lived, for a few years, that close to the man himself!). This was weird for us. We don’t do that kind of thing. After all, we didn’t know him. It seems disrespectful to try and share in that grief. But we are grieving. He was a big part of our lives. It’s not an overstatement to say he changed music, he changed culture. He did. And it’s not an overstatement to say he changed my life. Because he really did. And reading some of the messages scrawled on the walls around the mural in Brixton, I wasn’t the only one. Those messages are some of the most touching, heartfelt and moving things I’ve ever read. Many people have quoted lyrics from his songs that meant something to them. For me, these are the words that really spoke to me at fifteen, and that remind me now that I don’t have to feel the way I did then:

Oh no love! You’re not alone
You’re watching yourself but you’re too unfair
You got your head all tangled up but if I could only
Make you care
Oh no love! You’re not alone
No matter what or who you’ve been
No matter when or where you’ve seen
All the knives seem to lacerate your brain
I’ve had my share, I’ll help you with the pain
You’re not alone

Just turn on with me and you’re not alone
Let’s turn on with me and you’re not alone (wonderful)
Let’s turn on and be not alone (wonderful)
Gimme your hands cause you’re wonderful (wonderful)
Gimme your hands cause you’re wonderful (wonderful)
Oh gimme your hands.

Photo Credit BrixtonBuzz