David Bowie is dead; long live David Jones!

No, David Bowie is not dead, but technically he is. Bowie, the artist who puts albums out, tours and is interviewed about the same inane things repeatedly, is gone. I think it’s time to get over it.

The Telegraph reported in October 2012 that “the reclusive singer has been pictured in New York on a rare public outing dressed in grey cap and hooded top, bearing little resemblance to the fashion icon of the 1970s.”

65-year-old David Jones (of Bowie fame) caught acting normally in public and sparks ‘health fears’

Oh dear, that must mean that David Bowie is ill. Well, no. Not really. Bowie was already dead. The man spotted picking up take-away in New York on that autumn day was in fact the father of two and devoted family man, David Jones.

David Jones was a musician himself in the 1960s but vanished from public view in 1967 when a mysterious character called David Bowie arrived on the scene and in 1969 took over the world.

I am a huge fan of Bowie’s back catalogue and often find myself googling his name to find out the latest gossip from New York. Hilariously, I never find anything on Bowie these days and the papers seem to be following and hounding this poor bloke called David Jones. Why would they do that? In case he does a Clark Kent and leaps into a phone booth only to emerge moments later as David Bowie, a super man?!

I say “poor bloke” but he clearly isn’t and deservedly so. David Jones gave birth to David Bowie and the latter changed the face of music and, I would argue, to a certain extent art itself. He gave us Space Oddity in 1969 and released an album every year until 1978 when he took a well deserved “break” to tour and write his 1979 masterpiece Lodger.

You see, Bowie was a relentless power-house who never left the studio or the stage, often producing several albums a year. He was always writing, producing, performing, acting and being interviewed. Only when he hit the 1980s did he start to slow down but even then he released four studio albums, five if you include the first Tin Machine release, that decade.

The 1990s (which some people on the internet refer to as the lowest point of David Bowie’s career) actually proved to be his most inventive period since 1980’s Scary Monsters.  Between 1993 and 1999 he released five studio albums (six including Tin Machine’s second album) and delved into multiple worlds such as dance, jungle, drum n’ bass, industrial and the rest.

In 2002 he released the spectacular Heathen and a year later a younger brother called Reality, the latter becoming his final album. A heart attack while touring in 2004 brought everything to a sudden halt and eight years later we haven’t really seen or heard from Bowie.

So when is David Jones going to jump out of the phone booth? That is the question everyone on the net is asking.  But, I ask you all, why would Bowie return?

After thirty-five years of constantly producing life-changing music, and the birth of his first and so-far only child Lexi with his wife Iman, a heart attack that almost sent David away for good was certainly going to make him think things over.

The picture that the Independent used was supposedly of a 65-year-old David Bowie looking frail and on the verge of death. I don’t see this myself. I see a 65-year-old family man David Jones coming back from the shops. He looks bloody good compared to some 65-year-olds who live round where I live. And Bowie subjected Jones’ body to drugs and a gruelling rock and roll schedule that killed many of his contemporaries.

When Bowie had his heart attack in 2004 and, essentially, died, he must have thought about his mate John Lennon, shot down at 40 years old returning home from the studio. It wouldn’t surprise me if David Jones himself suddenly kicked in and remembered Sean Lennon and how he must have expected John and Yoko back from the studio during those now-famous 1980 recording sessions and how one day one of his parents never made it home. All before the age of six.

Jones must have pleaded with Bowie in that hospital room to let him have a break, if not completely retire. I can imagine that Jones had had enough and felt he had said all he needed to say. But most importantly, he didn’t want his daughter losing a parent before the age of six, as Sean Lennon and countless others have done.

And so, David Jones retired David Bowie.  But the world still wants to know where he is.

We fans search the internet relentlessly for a glimmer of news about his activities. We get pictures of Jones buying food. Soon we’ll get pictures of him talking on a phone in a park and then, most exciting of all, hailing a cab.

David Jones gave us Bowie and Bowie gave us everything we ever dreamed of and the rest. So why should he come back? What does he owe us? What do the fans want? For Bowie to come back and actually do a Tommy Cooper? Surely as an adoring public we should be happy that Iman has her husband and Duncan and Lexi have their father.

If I were walking through New York and happened to see David Jones emerging from a café I know that I would not approach him, purely out of the respect I have for him and the art he produced for people like me. I like to think that any true fan would do the same and respect his privacy.

We owe him that.
Long live David Jones.