The Last of David Bowie

David Bowie haunts the periphery of my childhood. A memory persists, circa 1983, of an elegantly turned-out man of indeterminate age, his head capped with wavy blond hair, playing guitar and leaning back against the interior wall of a faded Australian bar. “Let’s dance,” he sings in a sonorous voice. “Put on your red shoes and dance the blues.” Road-worn farmers and aborigines dance with abandon to the synth accented new wave pop.