The only time I saw David Bowie was in his Station to Station Tour in the late ’70s. I was very young and impressionable, and wanting to fit in only the most glam-rock way, I wore a sky blue satin vest to his concert at the long-gone Spectrum in Philadelphia. As I sat there dead-center back in the first tier, passing joints and sipping Schmidts as an enormous train chuffed in the background to Bowie singing “TVC 15,” I thought back to the first time I heard him. My cousin had just gotten his Ziggy Stardust album, and was completely blown away by it. “Just listen to this,” she said, playing “Suffragette City.” And we did, maybe ten times over, slam-dancing across her room and screaming “wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am!” I never heard anything like Bowie in my young life and for one reason or the other, being into him as much as I was made me feel part of something unique, like an elite corp of insiders. I can’t explain it, but his music just made you feel that way, and rather than fade I kept being amazed by him well into the new millennium.

You will be missed, Mr. Bowie, but thank you for such an astounding ride. RIP.