It all started last night when I had finished putting my book together. While waiting for it to process on the Kindle, I decided on a whim to record an audio book version for the chance to bring in some extra revenue. I spent several hours recording each review as a separate track, then had to convert them to wav files, then I finally had the long task of uploading them to my Bandcamp profile. It's a long time since I pulled a working all nighter, but I am so glad I did last night/this morning.

At around five o'clock, (although I'm a bit hazy on the actual details as I was knackered from recording the audio book), a tweet was posted by Caitlin Moran.

FUCKING HELL DAVID BOWIE'S RELEASED A NEW FUCKING SINGLE AND ALBUM FUCKING HELL FUCKING HELL davidbowie.com/the-next-day
— Caitlin Moran (@caitlinmoran) January 8, 2013

The news spread like wild fire of course, and I'm amazed that the Internet didn't freeze up as the link to David Bowie's website was clicked on for a listen to this new work. Today is David Bowie's birthday, but it was us who got the best present of all.

I think it's fair to say that the true fans felt that there was something in the air. The great man's name has been popping up from time to time, leading to the inevitable rumours that he will be making an appearance at the exhibition of his life and career at the Victoria and Albert in March. A statement appeared on his Twitter and Facebook pages, (official verified but I doubt very much he's doing it himself) to deny this, and we the fans slowly came to terms with the fact that David Bowie wasn't coming out to play anymore. It's been ten years since his last album, Reality and he has only made sporadic appearances since suffering chest pains during a 2004 concert in Germany which turned out to be a blocked artery. He cancelled the rest of the tour following an emergency angioplasty, and settled into family life with his wife Iman and daughter Alexandria. There have been the occasional appearances, a smattering of guest vocal work for David Gilmour, Arcade Fire, and Scarlett Johansson, but the only original song in the last ten years was the derogatory serenade to Andy Millman in Ricky Gervais's sitcom Extras. His last notable role was a voice over in SpongeBob SquarePants in 2008. The world held its breath during the Olympic closing ceremony, wondering if the great man was going to make a shock appearance, but alas it wasn't to be. No rock star in the history of the music business has ever managed to pull off the perfect retirement.

When Axl Rose retreated from public life with the intention of making an new album, he spent his time in hiatus making and re-making what was to become The Chinese Democracy and teasing the media with it until eventually he became the rock and roll version of the boy who cried wolf. Secret tracks were 'leaked' online, tours were announced and cancelled, and speculation was rife about whether or not the fans would ever hear a new Guns N' Roses song. The run up to the actual album release was aided by a campaign of media fanfare and full on trumpeting that the day had finally come. The album was streamed for one whole day on the official GnR Myspace site (a sign of the times), at which point we all collectively realised that it really wasn't worth the wait. David Bowie has managed to maintain both his dignity and enigma with his way of doing things. We the fans had resigned ourselves to perhaps never hearing a new Bowie song again. 'Where Are We Now?' appeared on iTunes and immediately shot to the top of the iTunes chart.

Unless Bowie agrees to do an interview, we will never know if releasing the song on his birthday had any significance, but the song itself is a melancholic reminiscence of his time in Berlin. For someone who always wants to look to the future, maybe his time in exile in which he became a pensioner has made him more reflective. Last year, a plaque was unveiled to commemorate the album cover for The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars, and this year a new album to coincide with the exhibition. I have a sneaking suspicion that he may appear at the exhibition, and as I'm going to the press launch, I will hopefully have a ringside seat. It is a few weeks short of Easter, so the perfect time for a re-appearance by someone who is revered as a god, (with the added advantage of actually being real).

This sort of proves what I said as far back as 2007, when I declared that downloading was the best thing to ever happen to the music business from the point of view of the artist. Recording a song yourself and uploading it to sell yourself without the interference of the pinstripe suited, cigar chomping, money grabbing arseholes like Colonel Tom Parker or Don Arden. Downloads gave the artist full control, which is useful for the up and coming musician, but Bowie has taken my point from the other end of the spectrum; the big name who can't be arsed bowing and tugging his forelock to the record label bosses who would have wanted to shout this news from the rooftops in advance of the release.

I haven't been up this early in the morning for a long time, either getting up or going to bed, but I am so glad I was today. Today was a definite day to tell the grandchildren about. My generation don't have many of those moments; the assassination of Kennedy, the moon landing, Woodstock etc, that became a "can you remember where you were when..." moment. We have Live Aid, the time a kid phoned Five Star on Going Live and asked why they were "so fucking crap", the final episode of Friends, and now this. When our grand children ask us, we can tell them where we were when David Bowie released his first new song in ten years without any hype, preamble, or fanfare. I'll say that I was at my desk, in my office, realising that I had really picked the wrong fucking day to release a new book.

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