I am not one of those people who sing and drive at the same time. I need to concentrate on the road and not kill people! But there are, like, three musicians I make an exception for. One is Bruce. One is Tom Petty. And the other is David Bowie.
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Back in 2009, I worked as a ballboy at a tennis tournament in Rockland County, New York. It was only a week, but it required a 45 minute drive every day. It was a beautiful drive down my favorite road – Bear Mountain Bridge Road – and the backstreets of New City.
I drove with my friend, Matt. We’d blast Q104.3, New York’s classic rock radio station. On the first day, we heard Queen and David Bowie’s Under Pressure on the ride back, right as we exited Bear Mountain Bridge Road.
The next day, the song played again, at the exact same spot on the exact same road. We thought it was weird and funny and tried to calculate the odds of that happening. It was … improbable.
The next day, we were talking about it on the ride home. Imagine if Under Pressure came on again? There’s no way.
We get to the spot, and then … we hear it. No! It couldn’t be! Not a third straight day!
We turned the radio to full blast and sang at the top of our lungs. CAN’T WE GIVE OURSELVES ONE MORE CHANCE? It is one of my favorite memories. It is also, by a wide margin, the least likely thing that has ever happened.
I never saw David Bowie live. I never met the man. But when I think of David Bowie, I just think of driving through the shadows of Bear Mountain, on a random summer night, singing Under Pressure.
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