I wasn't going to post anything today but the news about the passing of David Bowie has compelled me to write something.
As for many people mourning today, Bowie's music has formed the soundtrack of my life. From the first time I was mesmerised by Sound and Vision whilst on a fairground ride in 1977, to my very first gig ten years later, when he descended to the stage from the belly of a spider, this man has captivated me.
That first gig was a brain-changer for me. My sister had bought tickets to the Maine Road gig and in all honesty, at the time I was as excited about the Alison Moyet, Terence Trent D'Arby support acts as I was about seeing Bowie. Until he descended on stage, that is.
I have a perfect memory of him leaning into his mic, singing The Jean Genie. I stood there, rapt. And I remember the ensuing days where I mooned about (it was the summer holidays) unable to concentrate on anything. I knew I'd seen something, someone extraordinary, but wasn't quite sure how to define it. It seems that was Bowie's magic.
Fast forward to the '90s and I was working at Liberty in London, in the central scarf hall. In strides Bowie with his wife, Iman, she clad in head-to-toe black leather, he in an uncharacteristic Barbour jacket. The whole store went quiet. There was a moment of disbelief. I blushed. Bowie laughed. That laugh. The man-god was among us.
It's not that I listen to Bowie all the time or am such a devoted fan that I own all his albums or know every lyric off by heart. I haven't even seen Labyrinth - and don't intend to. There's just something about my relationship with him that defined an era for me. He woke up a part of my brain in the '80s that was waiting for something amazing to happen.
The last time I felt this grief-stricken about the passing of a public figure is when Gabriel Garcia Marquez, the magical realist novelist, died. Again, I'm not an uber-fan of his, but his Love In the Time of Cholera made my brain start working in a different way and my grief was for the imagination that made that happen.
And so now we say goodbye to Bowie. The essence of all that is creative and original - who never delivered anything that was expected of him.
I'm going to strut down the road, listening to Heroes, smiling at the thought that this south London boy changed the face of popular music forever, and constantly reinvented it.
There'll never be another one.