A Life in Songs is David Bowie's Relaxed Biography

One of the most random facts of my life so far - and one of my favorite ones - is that my great passion for David Bowie came through Lindsay Lohan. The motive was the film Confessions of a Teenager in Crisis (2004), which revolved around the troubles of two friends dealing with the changes in their lives, especially with the end of their favorite band.

I could identify with the protagonists. Gay, even if that was not very clear at the time, and already showing signs of an anxiety disorder, songs were a valve of escape and changes were my biggest nightmare.

Still, it was precisely through changes that David Bowie came into my life. In a certain scene of the film, the character of Lindsay Lohan sings the classic "Changes" in a modern installment of the play Pygmalion - popularized by the film My Beautiful Lady (1964). I could not get that chorus out of my head and I needed more. I imagine that my reaction when I discovered the original mind behind the song was similar to that of the young British in the 70's when they saw the extravagant Ziggy Stardust for the first time on primetime TV.

A pale, slender British man with different eyes, flaming orange hair and wearing strange clothes. At that first contact, David Bowie made no sense to me, but the identification was immediate-perhaps because I made no sense to myself. You must understand the fans to understand the rock star and Rob Sheffield knows this well when writing David Bowie: A Life in Songs



In addition to his vast repertoire of musical references, the editor of Rolling Stone magazine uses, above all, his experiences to narrate the different phases of the singer's career. While exploring an album in each chapter, Sheffield does not attach itself to the chronological order. He goes back and forth to explain the story of the star and his main characters: Major Tom, Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane and Thin White Duke. However, he does not get lost amidst the vibrant colors and glitter of the person Bowie did of himself.

The figure of the "Rock Chameleon", a term that the media insisted on employing throughout the generations, is humanized. The author uncovers the shattered David Robert Jones of Brixton to the great glam and thirsty farce for attention he never denied being - and that was probably the real reason fans fell in love.

What would be a simple biography gains a poetic depth in the words of Rob Sheffield, thing that only a fan could do. The book has a relaxed chat tone with a friend who shares the same obsession as yours. Using particular experiences as a way of telling David Bowie's life gives the text the ever-present confidence in the man's works in the stars: "I had to call someone, so I chose you. / Hey, how bizarre, so you heard him too! "