Bono Shares Eulogy for David Bowie: 'Part of Me Is Now a Void'

Bono has joined Trent Reznor and Mick Jagger in recent days by contributing a eulogy to Rolling Stone's upcoming David Bowie memorial issue. "I've played at being a rock 'n' roll star, but I'm really not one," Bono wrote. "David Bowie is my idea of a rock star."

In the piece, the U2 frontman remembers the first time he saw Bowie perform on Top of the Pops in 1972 ("David Bowie was the reason to have a color TV"), the time Bowie visited the studio while the band were mixing Achtung Baby and all the reasons Bowie told him he didn't like Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark – the 2011 Broadway musical Bono wrote the music and lyrics for.

Bono said:

Bowie’s musical landscape affected you in a way that is completely different from all the other music around it. You have to close your eyes, imagine you don’t speak English and just feel the songs and say, “What part of me is being played by those notes?” Or “Who else plays them?”
And in his case, the answer is nobody. That part of me is only played by David Bowie. So that part of me is now a void — I have to find other ways to wake it up. But it woke me up when I was 14.

Read the full piece here.