The star Ian Anderson crowned “the mother of reinvention”
In one of the final music videos he would ever release, David Bowie shows rocks jetting up from an unknown planet, piercing the night sky, and laying among them, a dead astronaut.
While this imagery may well look like it was taken from a science fiction movie and merely used to add an interesting tone to the video, it’s incredibly symbolic. David Bowie’s album, Blackstar, was released days before his death, and with the power of hindsight, many people believe the image of the deceased astronaut was Bowie foreshadowing his passing.
Ian Anderson, the creative mind behind the progressive rock band Jethro Tull, has always been a sucker for music that pushed the boundaries of creativity. This could be with sound alone, as you learn through just listening to Jethro Tull, who have never sat still when it came to genre and influence. He was happy to embrace different styles of music and cultures when adapting the sound his band made, and drew inspiration from various other rock bands such as Led Zeppelin when doing so.
“Jethro Tull and Led Zeppelin did share that same interest, even passion, for music that was not the normal stuff of rock and roll,” said Anderson, “And perhaps they, too, were influenced in some ways by what influenced me: Indian music, Mediterranean music, and British folk music.”
Of course, this boundary pushing art wasn’t just achieved through sound, but through style as well. David Bowie is a prime example of someone who mastered both of these aspects of creativity. While on one hand he was always making different sounding music, and has a catalogue of records where no two sound the same, he also constantly changed up his image, embracing different fashion and characters when diving head first into various concepts.
One of his most famous characters was Major Tom, the persona behind his first hit ‘Space Oddity’, where he embodied the character of an astronaut, flying through space and becoming almost melancholy in his realisation of how insignificant he is. It was a great song, an interesting theme and perfectly executed; however, it was only the tip of the iceberg when it came to Bowie, who would jump into the shoes of multiple characters throughout his career. It was this willingness to reinvent himself frequently that Anderson was such a big fan of.
When Bowie passed away, Anderson released a statement where he reflected on former meetings with Bowie and also celebrated his affinity for reinvention. “For David to die now is a huge sadness. Always the Mother Of Reinvention, there should have been more to come,” said Anderson, “But in true theatrical narrative fashion, always his forte, he released the iTunes chart number one album on a good Friday and his death was announced on early Monday, UK time. Could only have had more impact, perhaps, if the events had been the other way round.”
This was the significance of the image of the astronaut in Bowie’s music video for ‘Blackstar’. It ended where he started, following a career of reinvention, he went back to the beginning, to the imagery of Major Tom. His first character, his first persona, the first concept of his that the public fell in love with, entirely significant in recognising his insignificance. And, finally, laid to rest.
