Tributes have been coming in from all across the world for David Bowie who died late Sunday night after just turning 69. He had been fighting a courageous 18-month battle with cancer and eventually succumbed to the illness, but not after releasing one last brilliant, beautiful and quintessential Bowie album, Blackstar. Artists and fans such as Paul McCartney, Kanye West, Madonna and Brian Eno have been giving their well-wishes to Bowie's family and sharing touching stories about how the pop culture legend impacted them. Lorde is the latest, recounting the first time she ever met him.
Having achieved success at a very young age, Lorde was able to meet a lot of her idols right away, which they say you never should do because they will never be able to live up to your lofty expectations. Lorde echoes that sentiment, but says that Bowie was the one man who was so cool, so understanding and unique and lived up to everything she thought he would be.
It is a touching tale recounted in different forms by just about everyone else who met the man.
Read Lorde's first meeting with David Bowie below via her Facebook page.
"When a hero dies, everyone wants a quote. I woke up this morning with a tender head from tears and that big red cup of Japanese whiskey, gulped last night just after the news came. People were already asking me what I thought. It feels kind of garish to talk about oneself at a time like this, when the thing that has happened is so distinctly world-sized. But everything I've read or seen since the news has been deeply intrinsic in tone, almost selfish, like therapy. That's who he was to all of us. He was a piece of bright pleated silk we could stretch out or fold up small inside ourselves when we needed to.
Mr. Bowie, I guess right now we have to hang this thing up for a minute.
The night I met him I played at an expensive Vogue benefit with a lot of fresh flowers, honouring Tilda [Swinton]. I was not quite seventeen, America was very new to me, and I was distinctly uneasy and distrustful toward everything happening in my life that was putting me in these flat-voiced, narrow-eyed, champagneish rooms. I played my three songs, thrashing and twitching in platform boots. Afterward, Anna clasped my hand and said 'David wants to meet you,' and led me through people and round tables with candles and glasses and louder and louder talk, and he was there.
I've never met a hero of mine and liked it. It just sucks, the pressure is too huge, you can't enjoy it. David was different. I'll never forget the caressing of our hands as we spoke, or the light in his eyes. That night something changed in me - I felt a calmness grow, a sureness. I think in those brief moments, he heralded me into my next new life, an old rock and roll alien angel in a perfect grey suit. I realized everything I'd ever done, or would do from then on, would be done like maybe he was watching. I realized I was proud of my spiky strangeness because he had been proud of his. And I know I'm never going to stop learning dances, brand new dances.
It's not going to change, how we feel about him. For the rest of our lives, we'll always be crashing in that same car.
Thank you, David Bowie."
