Musician and producer Brian Eno received a final email from David Bowie a week ago in which his long-time friend thanked him for the good times and signed off with the invented name Dawn.
The former Roxy Music star on Monday revealed that Bowie, who he knew for more than 40 years, effectively bid him farewell in the email.
Eno, who collaborated with Bowie on a number of albums, likened the pair's friendship to that of comedy duo Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, known as Pete and Dud.
He described how they kept in contact by sending emails.
"David's death came as a complete surprise, as did nearly everything else about him. I feel a huge gap now," Eno said in a statement.
"We knew each other for over 40 years, in a friendship that was always tinged by echoes of Pete and Dud.
"Over the last few years - with him living in New York and me in London - our connection was by email. We signed off with invented names: some of his were mr. showbiz, milton keynes, rhoda borrocks and the duke of ear."
He said they had considered, around a year ago, reworking their last album Outside.
"About a year ago we started talking about Outside - the last album we worked on together. We both liked that album a lot and felt that it had fallen through the cracks. We talked about revisiting it, taking it somewhere new. I was looking forward to that."
Eno said he received a final email from Bowie seven days ago.
"It was as funny as always, and as surreal, looping through word games and allusions and all the usual stuff we did. It ended with this sentence: 'thank you for our good times, brian. they will never rot' and it was signed 'dawn'.
"I realise now he was saying goodbye."
