The modern classic that reduced Bono to tears: “A chilling ache of a song”
For Bono, music has always been an intimate experience. Regardless of how many times he’s sung ‘Where the Streets Have No Name’, each moment onstage turns into some religious exorcism whenever he opens his mouth, almost as if he’s channelling something from beyond to fill the stadium with sound. While that behaviour can seem hollow more than a few times, Bono knew that he was listening to brilliance when he put on David Bowie’s swan song, ‘Blackstar’, for the first time.
Because if Elvis Presley set the world on fire in America, then Bowie was Bono’s version of it from across the world. Presley was the larger-than-life figure that could make people swoon the minute he started shaking his ass, but the Starman’s decision to paint himself as a theatrical presence whenever he took the stage is something that no one else has been able to properly replicate since.
Even when most have tried, no one could really read where Bowie was going during his career, whether it was the glam years, his Berlin period working with Brian Eno or even the drum and bass years with Trent Reznor. But towards the end, Blackstar was where everything got serious.
No one could have anticipated that Bowie’s death was just around the corner, but hearing him talk about becoming a blackened-out star in the cosmos is both a striking image and a brilliant callback to the space theme that he touched on with ‘Space Oddity’. Bono had written plenty of tribute songs in his time, but hearing this from one of his heroes led to him breaking down in tears.
Since Bowie was no longer with us, Bono remembered being incredibly moved when listening to the record, saying in Surrender, “A chilling ache of a song, ‘Blackstar’ was more jazz than pop, more Miles Davis than Michael Jackson. I slowed on the brow of a hill with tears in my eyes. I held [my daughter] Jordan so tightly she realised it was her holding me, hot teenage tears from my eyes on her crimson cold cheeks.”
Then again, maybe those tears were more than just pure nostalgia. Bono had grown up knowing the small amount of time that people have on this Earth, so hearing Bowie speaking from the beyond for ten minutes about his own legacy and how he would most likely be remembered was intense for any prospective fan. This was someone facing down their final moments on this Earth and taking inventory of what they had learned about existence along the way. There are callbacks to the Berlin period for hardcore fans, but most of the greatest moments on the track are things that you can relate to on a human level rather than someone who followed Bowie ever since getting introduced to Major Tom.
Even if someone isn’t necessarily a dyed-in-the-wool Ziggy Stardust fan, the fact that Bowie thought enough to turn his last moments into an art piece is still one of the most impressive feats of strength that someone has ever endured. ‘The Thin White Duke’ knew that he had a struggle ahead of him years before he got to the studio to make ‘Blackstar’, but never for a minute does he show any kind of fear during his swansong.
