Introducing his song “Alma” on his 1965 album That Was the Year That Was, Tom Lehrer, referring to the song’s subject, Alma Mahler, quipped: “It’s people like that who make you realize how little you’ve accomplished. It is a sobering thought, for example, that when Mozart was my age, he had been dead for two years.”
Fortunately, that particular comment can’t be made about David Bowie, who is still with us, and at the age of 68 (he turns 69 in four days) there’s no risk of making any jokes about his early demise.
However, some clever person has decided to create a website dedicated to shaming the paltry accomplishments of your life when compared to that of David Bowie. The site is called What Did David Bowie Do at Your Age? The way it works is, you type in your current age, and then it spits out something that Bowie was doing at that age.
Here are a few examples:
When David Bowie was 17:
He released his first ever release, “Liza Jane/Louie Louie Go Home” in June 1964, under the name of “Davie Jones with The King-Bees”.When David Bowie was 29:
He starred in the film “The Man Who Fell to Earth” by director Nicolas Roeg.When David Bowie was 34:
He created the hit “Under Pressure” in collaboration with Queen, which was later included in the 1982 Queen album “Hot Space”.
As the person running the website says, “This page is to celebrate David Bowie, and remind us to get out of our comfort zone and start doing shit.”
Here’s a scorching version of “Stay” on the Dinah Shore show, which happened almost precisely 40 years ago to the day. The date of the show was January 3, 1976:
Previously on Dangerous Minds:
All the faces of David Bowie in one animated gif
Excerpts from the secret ‘autobiography’ David Bowie gave Cameron Crowe in the mid-‘70s: EXCLUSIVE