I wonder how many hours of my life I have danced to your songs.

I remember the first time I saw you; it was a photo in a magazine, you were wearing ladies underwear, and I thought, What? Is that possible? Can a man really do that? It expanded my seven year old horizon, to say the least. You were so important in the way you exploded gender roles and did your own thing, completely. Like someone else I loved, who also died this year. (I bet you and him are killing it wherever you are now.)

Your songs have accompanied me through thick and thin, probably ever since I saw that picture of you, and because my big sister played your records on repeat, all of them, from the very first one.

Oh, the funk. And the tenderness. The heart and the soul. I thank you for all of it: My life surely wouldn't have sounded the same if it wasn't for you.