In 1983, I was ten years old, but I was a rampant music fan, totally

captivated like so many others by Bowie, and the release of Let’s

Dance.

[FIRST OBJECT OF MUSICOLOGICAL INTEREST] Bowie was probably

my first object of, what I would now call, genuine musicological
interest. Unlike Michael Jackson, Duran Duran, Wham, Billy Squier —
all those bands and singers who were constantly on MTV — even as a
10 year old you could tell that there was something different about
Bowie. Like a proto-musicologist, I worked my way through the back
catalog, read biographies and articles about him, and slowly got to
know the contours of his career before Let’s Dance.

[LANDED ON ZIGGY STARDUST PERIOD] Like so many other, I got

fixated on the Ziggy Stardust period—Hunky Dory, Rise and Fall,
Alladin Sane, the underrated Pinups—where the albums were narrative
and conceptual, where the production was starting, and where the
music just didn’t sound like anything else I knew at time.

[FIRST ENCOUNTERED THE FILM] It was also at this time that I first
encountered Pennebaker’s film on Bowie, which must have been
theatrically released only a year or two before. I must have rented it
and watched it dozens of times, totally wrapt by Bowie’s performances
(and the amazing guitarwork of Mick Ronson).

[MEMORIES AND MOMENTS FROM THE FILM. MY DEATH.] From the

film, of course, the apocaplytic announcement — “not only is this the
last show of the tour, but it is the last show we’ll ever do” — is burned
in my memory. But of the performance that remains with me still is
Bowie’s rendition of Jacques Brel’s “My Death.” Of course, back then, I
had no idea who Jacques Brel was, and didn’t appreciate the
transformations and replications of the song as it made its way from
Jacques Brel is Alive and Well, to Scott Walker, to Bowie. What stood
out for me was the dark and somber performance, Bowie’s insistent
guitar strumming, his bright and sunken eyes looking out at the crowd,
and the crowd screaming in response to the broken ending of the song.
That performance brought to life the imaginary musical performances
invoked in the lyrics of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust, especially
a song like Lady Stardust, singing “sad songs of darkness and dismay.”
[ZIGGY STARDUST PERIOD REMAINS WITH ME. VALUE OF THE FILM.]
Of all the Bowie’s out there, of all his transformations and personae—
it’s probably cliche to like Ziggy the best. I’m roved around but always
come back to that period of his work. It was not the first Bowie I
encountered, but it is the one that has stayed with me the longest. And
we have D. A. Pennebaker to thank for capturing and documenting this
crucial moment of his career for us.

INTRODUCE CHARLIE…