Bowie: A Biography - JFK247

omantic to starve with these artists? he’d reason.
No longer a teenager, he was struggling to find a
balance between the world of his childhood and
some kind of valuable, productive adult world as an
artist. Both realms held darkness and bursts of bright
warmth. Meditation only helped balance the two so
much. He spent his days and nights stuck in the
middle, a bit of a psychic mess. It was certainly no
time for first love.
Mother: Are you going to wear that
tie? You might want to dress down.
Ren: I like the tie!
Mother: In September, when you go to
college, you can dress like David
Bowie.
—Frances Lee McCain and Kevin
Bacon as Ethel and Ren McCormack
(from Footloose, 1984)
I
t was freshman orientation and my mother and
stepfather had driven me up to Vermont from Long
Island. We’d stayed overnight in a bed-andbreakfast
and I remember falling asleep to the
radio. It was playing a song by Bruce Cockburn
entitled “If I Had a Rocket Launcher.” Next was
“Little Miss S.” by Edie Brickell and the New