The Wonder of Life: A Guest Post by Peter Ormerod

Inside Bowie’s quest for meaning. This book takes a deep look at the icon’s complex journey towards spiritual and artistic enlightenment throughout his music career. Read on for an exclusive essay from Peter Ormerod on writing David Bowie and the Search for Life, Death and God.

The idea for this book came slowly and suddenly. In some ways, it grew from my childhood: everything was essentially in place before I turned 18. My father was a priest in the Church of England, so I grew up surrounded by religion. Children who grow up in such an atmosphere often run away from religion as quickly as they can. In my case, for some reason, it stuck.

Then came Bowie. One evening in 1996, when I was 17, I listened to my brother’s tape of an album called Hunky Dory. It made me weep, and I did not know why. I had heard of Bowie, of course: I was nine when I saw the film Labyrinth, in which Bowie played the role of a goblin king. But I was also dimly aware he had prayed the Lord’s Prayer during a concert at Wembley Stadium. And there were some words on Hunky Dory that resounded in me, words like salvation, faith, and belief. The songs were beautiful and thrilling and seemed to gesture towards somewhere just out of reach. It was everything I wanted from music, even more than everything.

Before long, I wanted to listen to everything he did, read all I could about him, watch all his interviews. A lot of biographies would mention some of his spiritual interests – Buddhism, black magic, Kabbalah – but then move on. I just wanted more of that stuff – not only because I found it fascinating, but also because I felt it was really important.

As the years went on, this feeling intensified. I was convinced there was a bigger story here, one as yet largely untold. I hoped someone would write it. Then suddenly, in 2022, the thought hit me: I could write it myself. I took at first to Substack, but it soon became apparent that there was a proper book in this.

Something wondrous kept happening while I was writing it. I’d have a theory about the spiritual significance of a song, dismiss it as outlandish, and then discover my hunch was correct. I am aware of the dangers of confirmation bias and the human propensity to hallucinate patterns; but I tested what I saw and found it was real.

The research was stimulating, mind-expanding and fun. It involved learning about extraordinary thinkers, mystics and spiritualists; I had a wonderful morning at a church where the young David sang as a choirboy; and only a few days before the book was due to be printed, I trawled frantically through Bowie’s personal archive, which had been opened to the public only that week. What I found there surpassed my greatest hopes.

The whole experience has only deepened my appreciation of Bowie; I feel his music more powerfully than ever. And it has helped me see the wonder of life more clearly too. I hope you get as much from reading my book as I did from writing it.