If David Bowie really has returned to form, I’ll cry

I haven’t heard the David Bowie album yet, but the Amazon order is in and Postie has been alerted as to the importance of the delivery. How often these days do any of us feel so excited about an imminent release? The ten-year gap between Bowie albums might have something to do with it, but the 30-year gap between decent Bowie albums is probably more relevant. And all this is down to the excellence of the single. Gary Kemp of Spandau Ballet wept the first time he heard ‘Where Are We Now?’, and I was blubbing well into the song’s third or fourth week on Radio 2.

Nostalgia for lost youth isn’t exactly a new theme, but the song’s grandeur and strange fragility seem to speak directly to the slightly melancholy middle-aged male, which is pretty much all of us. Convention would demand that after the second chorus you would get a third, which would edge the song perilously close to anthem territory.