The Climb -- Patricia Head Summitt 1952-2016 In Memoriam

Author's note: If it wasn't for a comment this morning from Spencer Barrett, outstanding UT Vols artist, this story wouldn't have been anywhere as good. Thanks, Spencer!And the incredible art was done by UT Vols artist Jeff Page, and just so encapsulates how Vols fans feel. This is a collaboration of artists in different mediums, in celebration of the passing of an icon.

Let me tell you a story. 

I'm not a particularly spiritual person, but I strongly believe in iconography. And some days, that type of story may work better than your standard comforts of faith. Today I wanted to see an image that represented how I felt, but I'm not an artist. I wish I was, just for today. I wish I could paint what I see. I even talked to artists this morning, grasping for a way to solidify what I felt. But I'm a writer, and I paint in words. And while I *never* post fiction on this blog, today is the day I am going to break my own rule.So let me tell you a story--an allegorical tale, the kind I never tell. But be warned--the real story is far better written than this poor one. The story's title is: 

The Climb
by Celina  Summers

* * *

A red-gold sun rose one morning on a woman standing alone in a field. She looked around for a moment, confused. She wasn't used to being alone, and wasn't sure if she liked the way it felt.

What the heck am I doing out here? 

The sun was hot--Tennessee in summer hot, when the suckers are climbing the tobacco leaves and the heat shimmers over the turned, red earth like fumes of gas. The woman didn't waste time worrying about why she was suddenly in that tobacco field. She took off through the rows, her long stride snapping with impatience and more than a little irritated. Irritation was a familiar sensation, just like the red earth that was cool between her toes. The tobacco leaves slapped against her as she passed, but softly--not the slicing shear she remembered in an abrupt flash of skinny arms and stinging slashes into tanned skin. 

As she marched through the field, the sun rose higher above her--rising oddly fast, searing into her skin with a pleasant heat. In time, those long, lanky strides relaxed--her irritation faded, and was replaced by a sense of challenge. 

How big is this darn field anyway? Not big enough to scare me.

She was going to find her way out of it. 

She topped a small rise, and just ahead a line of trees interrupted the endless monotony of the tobacco field. Her steps grew faster, longer, because anyone in a tobacco field in Tennessee knows that the only promise of escape from the merciless sun and the smell of the arid, pungent leaves lies under those trees. The woman turned back for a moment, surveying the immense field with its red clay and green plant stripes. As the verdant shadow of the century-old oaks darkened the ends of the infinite rows, the clay underfoot moistened and cooled until a trail of evenly paced footprints tracked her out of the field and into the breathless silence of the wood.

She breathed easier there, under the cooling caress of the shade, but when she thought about brushing the sweat away from her face she decided not to. She liked the feel of that sweat, liked the scent of it against her skin--infused with the unmistakable sting of the tobacco field and hinting at some greater promise.

She could rest here and no one would blame her. But herself. 

A breeze rustled through the trees, and the leaves' silver underbellies gleamed throughout the wood. As she passed under them, streams of sunlight gilded the path. The entire wood was a series of contrasts--silver and gold, cool and hot, light and dark. Like an imperfect checkerboard, laid out like a promise beneath her feet. 

She liked the contrast. She loved the conflict between the elements. This all felt familiar, comfortable and beloved. She had left the dusty monotony of the tobacco fields behind, and traded it for this elemental struggle without a twinge of regret. The golden light faded and the leaves turned back into their normal bland summer green, the breeze abruptly stopped and the woods began to rise into a steep hill. She came out of the shade into the scorching blaze of the afternoon sun.

As she walked, she thought: No one has ever walked here before. I am the first. 

Animals watched as she walked by, unafraid but hesitant--like they'd never seen such a thing in their forest before. Eyes everywhere, gazes fixed on her at first with suspicion or disdain, then comprehension lightened those feral looks. Other animals--small, shy, uncertain ones--emerged from their hidden dens. She stopped, crouched low, and smiled. 

And they came running to her, eyes lit in wonder and unaffected joy. She stroked their soft fur, ruffled their feathers, and turned them all to look up the hill. 

"That's where we're going to go," she announced.

They all stared at her, and for a moment they were all frozen in shock. 

"Up," she explained. 

With that, she stood up, turned her face to the hill, and started to climb. At first, only a few of the animals came, bounding alongside her without fear. But then the rest followed, running--leaping with her, proud to be in her company and elevated because she led them. There were pockets of shade around hinting at rest and relief from the heat, but she avoided them. She embraced the heat like a long-lost friend, welcomed the trickle of sweat down her spine as she continued her ascent of the stone-tumbled mountain she was determined to conquer.

Once something loud crashed in the underbrush, shattering the silent joy of the animals and the shade that had been so alluring was now threatening and dark. The woman stopped and leveled a hard, challenging look at the beast growling at her from its den. Her animals suddenly straightened and glared at the challenging beast without fear. 

"Don't even think about it," the woman warned the beast. "And shut up." 

She turned her back and continued her climb, and the animals that followed her burst forth around her, unafraid of the predator who'd slunk, chastened, back into its dark den. They swarmed around her, raced through her legs, jumped as high as they could for her approval. They couldn't keep pace with that unhurried stride, the constant pulse of determination that fueled her long limbs, so they ran instead. As the crowd swelled around her, the animals passed her and ran up the hill that was more like a mountain. Some that had followed her took wing, and soared through the trees into the sky. 

None of them looked down, afraid to fall. 

None of them looked back. 

And all the time the crowd of animals that had volunteered to accompany her on this ascent ran harder, flew faster, soared higher--because she willed them to. 

At last, the woman reached the summit of the mountain--and stopped dead in her tracks. A grim-faced man was sitting on the rocky top of the mountain, an old Bluetick Coonhound at his feet. The dog looked up at her mournfully from smokey-colored eyes, so she knelt and scratched his ears. His fur was silky under her fingertips, and he swiped her hand with a rough tongue. 

Best dog in the world.

The man's face was craggy, his short cut salt and pepper hair receded slightly from his weathered features. He glared at her and growled, "What the hell are you doing here?"

She glared back. "Had to get to the top." 

The man relaxed slightly. "Know what you mean, but you're here too damn early." 

She stared at him for a long moment, something whispering against her mind. The connection suddenly clicked and she laughed. "Butch looks a lot like you." 

The man laughed too, as if her comment had surprised him. The hound lifted his head, his ears pricked up. The woman looked down at the now-alert dog. 

"What's wrong with him?" 

The man squinted past her, his eyes twinkling. "Nothing wrong. Smokey always gets excited when they show up." 

The woman turned around. The forest was gone; the animals were no longer clustered on the mountainside. Instead, she, the man, and the dog stood alone on the summit of the mountain. Smokey got to his feet and lifted his muzzle in a loud, joyous howl. His tail thumped hard against the side of the woman's leg, as the sun illuminated an endless field of faces--faces of girls she'd known who'd grown into legends, of women she'd known who'd worked at her side, of men whose dismissal had turned into reverence, even people she'd known only well enough to smile at when they passed on the street or in the arena halls. But there were millions of face she'd never seen, never known--all smiling, all wreathed with the same expression of awe and love. 

"You remember 'em?" the man asked softly.

"I always remember the faces." And for the first time in what seemed like an infinite climb, she did. 

"You brought 'em with you," the man said. "Brought 'em all to the top--millions of 'em you never met have all climbed the mountain because of you." 

"Not me," she replied. "Themselves." 

"One increasing purpose, Coach." The man clapped his hand on her shoulder--an approving clap that wasn't lessened because she was a woman. "You kept everlastingly on the job." 

She turned to the man with a smile, a smile unlike her usual infectious laughing grin. A shy smile, the smile of a child seeking approval from a god whose maxims she revered. He extended his hand, equal to equal. Giant to giant. 

But his eyes softened, and glittered with unexpected tears as he said quietly, "Welcome home, Pat." 

Without hesitation, she gave him a huge hug. "Thanks, General." 

Between them, Smokey howled, and a final vagrant breeze brought a whiff of the heat-baked tobacco fields as the white-hot June sun finally slipped from the sky in a blaze of orange. The sea of faces flared in front of her one last time, gilded by the last ray of light, then sank and receded into the darkness. 

The last thing she saw was the tobacco field, tiny and deserted, its green rows fading into the blood red clay--distant, but still clearly visible. The foundation. The root. The impetus that began the climb.

Requeiscat in pace, Patricia Head Summit 1952-2016

The Phoenix Is Fallen

When I was a grownup, I watched with escalating horror as the legends of my youth passed away. As a writer, I keep odd hours. But last night, I wasn't writing. Last night, I was conducting a vigil. I had a horrible feeling all day. For some reason, I felt like it was the last day--a day I thought would never come. Some people you honestly believe are immortal. As a grownup, I worked on my novel, editing, with ESPN News on the TV, and every few minutes I checked the ticker. When I'd first watched Muhammad Ali, I didn't wait until 12:30 in the morning as I did last night.

When I was a kid, bedtime was non-negotiable.

Unless I was watching a sporting event with my dad. And every time that Muhammad Ali was fighting, I got to stay up. My dad loved Ali--had loved him since he'd won Olympic gold along with our hometown girl, Wilma Rudolph. My dad isn't the kind of guy to jump on a bandwagon.  He's the kind of man to march against the tide around him. He'd loved Cassius Clay; he continued to love Muhammad Ali. And because my dad was my hero, I did too. My love of sports began on those nights when I was allowed to cuddle with my father in his big chair, watching football games or those amazing, spectacular boxing matches when Ali came back to retake his heavyweight title.

A phoenix, rising from the ashes of his career, to regain what was unfairly taken from him.

When I was a kid, I didn't care about politics. 

My dad did. And although he is an Army veteran, he respected Ali's stand against Vietnam. I remember hearing him argue with my grandfather and uncles about it. He was outraged that Ali was stripped of his titles, losing the best years of a boxer's career. "Shouldn't matter what a man thinks, sports has no reason to punish a guy for his beliefs." 

When I was a kid, I didn't care about race. 

That was my dad's generation--and Ali's. I was of the generation who grew up after the Civil Rights Act, after the abolishment of segregation. My parents raised their kids to ignore the still-difficult relationship between the races in the Deep South. But I couldn't help but  be aware of how Ali already transcended that invisible-but-still-felt barrier that was slowly disintegrating around us, and how beloved he was. And as a little white girl in an all-white family I wasn't aware of how incredible that was.

When I was a kid, I watched Ali's greatest fights. 

I watched his comeback fight and loss to Joe Frazier as a kid on my dad's lap. I watched his victory in the second fight over Ken Norton. I watched Ali beat Frazier in their second bout, and the most brutal boxing match I've ever watched--their third and final match. We went to Nashville to watch the Rumble in the Jungle on PPV.  Rope-a-dope  had more impact live than it does now. I still don't know how he withstood the beating he took from Foreman, but he did. Make no mistake, all you dudes who thought Tyson could have beaten Ali if they'd met in their prime--no way would Tyson have been able to go the distance with Ali, and he would have had to. Ali refused to stay down on the mat.

When I was a kid, I watched the end of Ali's career.

I watched every single fight after he beat George Foreman. Every. Single. One. When he lost to Larry Holmes in a fight that no doctor should EVER have given the okay to, my brother and I sat in our living room and cried. Ali was our hero--the invincible man of our youth. It was unthinkable that he could lose. But he had. The Frazier fight was one thing--Smokin' Joe was a monster. The sorrow in Howard Cosell's voice, the obvious sound of him choking back his own tears is something I remember vividly to this day.

When I was a grownup, I realized how important Ali really was. 

Once I was old enough to understand the political importance of Muhammad Ali, I finally was able to process just how vital his influence was. His oft-quoted "I ain't got no quarrel with them Viet-Cong--no Viet-Cong ever called me nigger." 

That quote doesn't deserve to be softened with a politically correct n-word. You need to read it in its original form to get the impact, the full impact, of an Olympic gold medalist who couldn't eat in the same restaurants with my family, or use the same bathroom, or drink from the same fountain. So don't expect me to insult the memory of Ali's courage by paraphrasing what he said. 

When I was a grownup, I realized again how important Ali was--to me. 

The opening night of the 1996 Olympics was an landmark day for me. After years of estrangement, I was visiting my dad. We were watching the opening ceremonies together. And how fitting it was that Ali was the surprise they'd been touting all day. When Janet Evans climbed the steps at Olympic plaza and all of a sudden the light fell on that oh-so-familiar face, I teared up. I'm tearing up writing this now. This man who'd meant so much to people of color everywhere, who'd inspired so many people, stood there as the representative of his country once more at the Olympic games. Once the torch in his hand was lit, the shaking in his hands was so obvious and terrible. 

My dad said, "Someone's going to have to help him light that thing." 

I said, "No one is going to help Muhammad Ali do anything--not when the world is watching." 

Ali gritted his teeth, put both hands on the torch, and stilled the shaking out of sheer will. When I saw the fire catch, I started to cry. Not because Ali was obviously so ill, but because he was still refusing to give up. He was down on the mat in the eyes of everyone watching, and out of his inability to give up, his defiant nature, his self-pride, and above all the consciousness that billions of people were watching him around the world, he overcame once again the elements ranged against him. 

He refused to stay down. 

When I was a grownup, I could watch all of Ali's fights--the ones before I was born. The Liston fights, when Ali's incredible speed confounded the champ--and the speed of his mouth terrified him. 

When I was a grownup, I could discover his bravado from the earliest days and laugh with him. I could learn his history, from the stolen bicycle that led him into boxing to the Olympic games where he'd met--and briefly dated--Miss Wilma, who was a beloved icon of sports in my hometown. 

When I was a grownup, I could appreciate the courage it took for Ali to make the stand he did against the draft, and how unapologetic he was for taking it.  

When I was a grownup, I could witness Ali's transformation from draft-dodger into a man that represented the highest ideals of sports--a man who'd sacrificed his career to stand up for his beliefs--and  how everyone grew to respect him for it.

When I was a grownup, I watched all the idols of my youth begin to die. 2016 has been particularly hard for people my age. But today, today is the hardest day. Muhammad Ali was the first of my childhood heroes, and my worship of him began at the age of five--a little girl sitting on her father's lap watching him box on TV. Ali is an unbreakable link between my father and me. Dad put up with a lot of crap because he loved Ali so much--and the fact that his precocious daughter had a nasty habit of scowling at a grown-up that was giving Dad grief about it and saying, "Ali is the greatest." 

After all, Ali had said it himself--and no one dared to deny it after the Frazier and Foreman fights. I have this mental image of him ascending to whatever afterlife is there, surrounded by a huge crowd of Congolese kids yelling, "Ali bomaye! Ali bomaye!"

And whoever's at the gate doesn't even have to ask his name.

Like my dad, Ali has always been there--boxer, political figure, orator, icon, philanthropist--a constant, smart-mouthed phoenix rising from the flames.

Today, the flame that began in the world consciousness at the Rome games of 1960, the vibrant, defiant flames of the phoenix are finally doused. What once people thought was empty boasting is now universally accepted as the truth. 

Even beyond the grave, Ali will back it up. Godspeed, Champ. 

2016--The Year The Music Died

First Bowie. Then Merle Haggard. Now...Prince?

I can't believe it. 

Prince was an integral part of my growing from adolescence into womanhood--an independent musician intent upon having his own way, creating music no one else had ever thought of, and riding the charts to unbelievable popularity. 1984 was the year of Purple Rain--my senior year in high school/first year of college. Despite the earlier songs I was familiar with, Prince was an enigma to me, a punk girl trapped in the country music of the Deep South. Purple Rain was an awakening for me musically--a conceptual album that told a story, but not as high brow as Bowie or as insistent as Pink Floyd. 

And that story was the kind of thing important to a 17-year-old girl. His music spoke of emotion and sex and violence, wrapped in the imagery of a novelist and the words of a rebellious poet. He wrote songs about things that no one else dared to--Darling Nikki, anyone?

I met a girl named Nikki
I guess you can say she was a sex fiend.
Met her in a hotel lobby
Masturbating with a magazine.
She said, "How'd you like to have a good time?"
And I just couldn'r resist
When Nikki started to grind-- 
             --Prince and the Revolution, Purple Rain 1984 ™

Prince was the anti-Michael Jackson--an artist of color who didn't give a rat's ass what anyone thought about the fact that he was five foot nothing, wore high heels, and dressed like a New Romantic. He was a virtuoso musician who could play multiple instruments, and one of the best guitarists in music. His voice was unbelievably rangy--a full FOUR octaves plus four or five additional notes surrounding his natural baritone.He created an iconography around himself that even in an era where all the great musicians were doing that, his stood above the others for its sheer audacity and playfully malicious message. His sexuality was endlessly debated--and yet, no one had any doubt that if you pissed Prince off, he would kick your ass.

And then run over you with his souped-up purple motorcycle.

He was an androgynous bad ass, whose work as a producer was almost as revolutionary as his music. He brought us one of the great party anthems of all time thanks to his introduction of Morris Day and the Time to the world, and one of the greatest love songs and vocal performances ever with Sinead O'Connor's version of Nothing Compares 2 U. Hell, we wouldn't have text-speak if he hadn't done it first.

He took a stand against the big record label who'd tied up the rights to his music, and emerged as "the artist formerly known as Prince"--a stand that might have ended up killing another musician's career. Two years ago, he won the rights to that music back, effectively bringing Warner Brothers to their knees after he'd termed their contracts "slavery" two decades before. And then he triumphantly re-signed with them, having regained the rights to his entire catalog.

Prince was a legend, and became one very early on. I respected his independent spirit, his fearlessness in standing up to a corporate giant, and the poetry infused into every lyric he ever wrote. My kids grew up hearing Purple Rain and Controversy. Bowie they liked; Prince, they loved.

That summer of 1984, I was driving home from work and When Doves Cry was on the radio. I was one of those sing along in the car kind of kids. I had an orange VW Bug that I loved, and driving through Clarksville, Tennessee with the top down and Prince cranking on a hot summer's day was a pretty awesome feeling. When I got home, surprisingly, my mother was waiting for me. I instantly tried to figure out what I'd done to get into trouble, and then she told me that my best friend had been killed in a car wreck that morning.

I'd talked to Tammy on the phone the night before. We had big plans for college--after years of debating against each other for different high schools, we were at last going to be debating together on the same team. We were excited, because fall semester was only a few weeks away. I'd known Tammy since we were both toddlers. She and I lived five houses apart back then. Her death was the first tragedy to ever touch me that closely.

And ever since, When Doves Cry has inextricably been associated with her death in my mind.

That summer and fall, I played Prince's Purple Ran album over and over. When Doves Cry might have been tied to death for me, but the rest of the album was exuberantly, vibrantly, sexually full of life and the joie de vivre that Prince's iconic album exuded. It helped me cope with loss, and taught me that all the changes a teenager undergoes are an essential part of life--not wrong, but defiantly normal and oh-so-right.Living in the same state as the hypocritical Tipper Gore and her stupid parental advisory labels on music (and now video games) made his defiance of society's "acceptable" norms even more impactful--and taught me as a writer to push the boundaries myself and to seek the rarer paths in my work

An important lesson, for something that was "just" pop music.

So today, after losing David Bowie and dealing with his incredible self-designed epitaph, after losing an icon of country music in singer-songwriter Merle Haggard (not my cup of tea, but what an incredible story and human being he was)--now we must confront the horror of a world without Prince.

I am a child of the 80's. The pop culture of that decade has influenced my taste as an adult, for good or for ill. Music is what taught me to be a rebel--and that rebellion is epitomized in two artists: David
Bowie, and Prince.

I'm sure somewhere, among his things or upcoming music, Prince has composed his own epitaph. But if he hasn't, that's all right--because he wrote it thirty years ago.

How can you just leave me standing?

Alone in a world that's so cold

Maybe I'm just too demanding

Maybe I'm just like my father--too bold

Maybe I'm just like my mother

She's never satisfied

Why do we scream at each other?

This is what it sounds like when doves cry...

          --When Doves Cry, Prince and the Revolution, 1984 ™

There is no doubt about it. 2016 is the year the music died.

David Bowie, Iconographic Control, Blackstar, And Death

I knew there was a reason I couldn't sleep last night. 

For the past couple of days I've had a killer migraine--the keep one eye closed in order to see kind--and to say that my stomach has been upset is a major understatement. I used to have nasty migraines when I was young, but this is the first mega-migraine I've had in years. For some reason, around 5:30 this morning I randomly checked my Twitter--something I refuse to do before noon--and got gutted. 

David Bowie is dead. 

As I read the news that he'd been battling cancer for 18 months, all of a sudden a lightbulb went off in my head--and it was shaped like a Blackstar--the 10 minute jazz-pop fusion grotesque and yet enchanting title song/video of Bowie's latest...now last...album. If you haven't seen this video yet, you need to. 

Why? 

Because it's David Bowie saying goodbye to David Bowie...and demanding that we do as well.

Blackstar and its followup piece Lazarus share similar themes/iconography/images, and now that the news has churned its way into my writer's soul, I realize that Bowie, the chameleon before Madonna ripped her first fishnets, had not only reinvented himself once again but had done so with his own imminent death in mind.  

This video is vintage Bowie...without being vintage. From the beginning image of what could very well be a crash-landed and long dead Major Tom, through the bejewelled skull of the Thin White Duke to the blind prophet with button eyes (and I never thought button eyes could get creepier than in Gaiman's Coraline) to the three scarecrows being crucified as the sacrifice to a vicious and hungry entity--but particularly in Bowie's pronounced emaciation and the jerky, spasmodic movements of his acolytes the viewer is simultaneously horrified and entranced by the sheer artistic beauty and macabre power of Bowie's always haunting voice. 

From the day of execution

From the day of execution

Only women kneel and smile

At the centre of it all 

At the centre of it all

--your eyes

--your eyes

Bowie's acolytes--or are they his murderers?--repetitively engage in their stop-motion dance of death, and the song suddenly changes:

Something happened on the day he died

Spirit rose a metre and stepped aside

Somebody else took his place, and bravely cried

(I’m a blackstar, I’m a blackstar)

​

How many times does an angel fall?

How many people lie instead of talking tall?

He trod on sacred ground, he cried loud into the crowd

(I’m a blackstar, I’m a blackstar, I’m not a gangster)

And when you follow that up with the video for Lazarus--

 

--the button-eyed prophet is now in a hospital bed, from which he rises to resurrect--literally--that thin white duke, jumpsuit, high heels and all. And then the lyrics--

Look up here, I’m in heaven

I’ve got scars that can’t be seen

I’ve got drama, can’t be stolen

Everybody knows me now

Look up here, man, I’m in danger

I’ve got nothing left to lose

I’m so high it makes my brain whirl

Dropped my cell phone down below

Ain’t that just like me

By the time I got to New York

I was living like a king

Then I used up all my money

I was looking for your ass

This way or no way

You know, I’ll be free

Just like that bluebird

Now ain’t that just like me

My God. It hits you like a punch in the gut. David Bowie, who has had such an incredible influence over six decades of music, wrote his own Requiem. He starred in his own Passion Play--The Passion of Ziggy Stardust is encapsulated in these two songs and particularly in the videos for them. He not only creates his death iconography, but he demands that we accept his version of events as his reality because he leaves us no choice. But he is not the scarecrow on the cross of martyrdom waiting for his monster to consumer him, he is instead a visionary without vision--a priest without any religion save the religion of self-command, and he compels us to cede our control to him as well. 

All of this is merely speculation. As much as I would love to channel Bowie, I would never presume to say that i know what he was thinking when he came up with this. I can only speculate, as a lifelong fan of Bowie's who has spent literally decades trying to decipher the workings of his brilliant yet tortured artistic muse. But this morning, when the news that David Bowie was dead at 69 filtered into my sleep deprived brain, all of the deciphering I've done over the past few weeks of Blackstar and then a few days ago Lazarus slammed into my mind with the completion one usually feels when the last piece of the puzzle slides inevitably into its proper place. 

Two life events we, as human beings, are absolutely incapable of influencing--our births and our deaths. Only with the latter can we find a way to reconcile ourselves to the inescapable finality of our final hours. But an artist like Bowie, beloved by legions of people aged 70 to 7, has another opportunity to impact those unknowns who loved them--and that is the artist's individual perception not only of death, but their own death. Just as Mozart spent his last hours feverishly fingering orchestration for his great final masterpiece Requiem, so did Bowie spend his last year of life masterminding the iconography of his final masterpiece. For believe me--Blackstar is Bowie's Requiem, his farewell to all his incarnations, his fans, and, at the end, himself. 

I can’t answer why (I’m a blackstar)

Just go with me (I’m not a filmstar)

I’m-a take you home (I’m a blackstar)

Take your passport and shoes (I’m not a popstar)

And your sedatives, boo (I’m a blackstar)

You’re a flash in the pan (I’m not a marvel star)

I’m the great I am (I’m a blackstar)

It is, at the end, both a curse and a gift. A curse against the inevitability of time and disease, and a gift of a true artist's last, brilliant self-image. Whatever happened, David Bowie didn't die cringing and weeping for his fate. He screamed defiantly into the night, and soared beyond all the petty fears that drive so many of us when facing our own mortality. 

Godspeed, David Bowie, to whatever distant star is your Blackstar. 

@all lyrics-- David Bowie, Blackstar (2016) VEVO Music