BLACKSTAR LEGACY

In 2016, on David Bowie’s birthday, he released his final album, Blackstar, to the world. This album consisted of seven songs and two music videos; which preceded the main release. Unfortunately, Bowie knew 18 months before that he had been diagnosed with liver cancer and 16 months in, he knew it was terminal. Bowie took this news and transformed it into words and imagery, blending past events and personalities with ambiguous and personal meanings. Bowie left a message and displayed an iconic legacy one last time on what it means to be born, to live and then die. The legacy of Blackstar has transcended into culture to influence others on how to think, dream, and critically analyze the world around them.

Bowie collaborated with Donny McCaslin and his band and they started recording in January 2015 (1). “Bowie had been battling cancer for six months when he entered Magic Shop’s expansive studio facilities in January 2015 to record his 25th album” (2). As they recorded, composed and assembled later in that year, it came time to shoot music videos. The director for the Blackstar music video, Johan Renck, listened to Bowie and saw his sketches for his character who was named Button Eyes and was a constant presence in both videos (3).

Before they started to shoot the video, Bowie called Renck and said he was very ill and he may die soon. “They shot Bowie performing for one day for each video and just five hours on those days in a studio in Brooklyn” (2). In October 2015, Bowie filmed the music video for Lazarus during the middle of the shoot he found out “It’s over… his illness has won.” says Renck (3). Two months later Bowie passed away. 

The lyrics in his songs are why Blackstar is a compelling album. Critics and fans talked about the ambiguous lyrics when it was first released and continue to talk to this day. In the song Blackstar, he sings, “I’m a Blackstar, I’m a Blackstar”, same as the album and song’s name. Passionate debates try to comprehend what he means. “Blackstar Theory: The Last Works of David Bowie” by Leah Kardos, is one of many fans to dive deep into the mystery of the album. “Is it another name for a cancerous lesion, a black hole, a reference to Saturnian astrology, a Jungian or alchemical shadow, a temporal plot device from a Star Trek episode, or did it refer to a big day of gangland assasination in Peaky Blinders?” (4).  

Other mysterious talking points are his lyrics from the identical intro and outro of Blackstar creating a palindrome. He sings, In the Villa of Orman stands a solitary candle, in the center of it all, your eyes. I believe this to be Bowie telling us that in each of us, at the center lives a candle, a flame, where we can see the world with our eyes and choose how we want to live. We have the power and determination to be as bright or as dull as we want. The ambiguous lyrics open the door to introspection, allowing each listener and viewer to interpret their personal meaning. 

Continuing with the Blackstar song, Bowie goes deeper and more personal in verse two with “something happened on the day he died” and at the end of this verse, an echo of him singing “I’m a Blackstar, I’m a Blackstar”. But he is not singing it to us just yet, he is giving us tidbits of what is to come. Bowie sings “He trod on sacred ground, he cried loud into the crowd…” and gives us two more “I’m a Blackstar” with the echo once more. He sings with no echo in a stronger “I’m a Blackstar” at 5:58 with a gentle instrumental push. Then he sings with no echo and no extra sub audio mixes. In the music video, you feel a surge of deep emotion. Bowie stands with his eyes closed, hands in the air singing, “I’m a Blackstar, way up on money, I’ve got game. I see right, so wide, so openhearted’s pain.” Bowie is now singing from his soul. He has done it all. He has given what he can. He is a Blackstar holding his hands up, letting the creator of the universe take him when it's time. 

The song, Girl Loves Me may seem distant from the other songs in the album. He sings, “Cheena so sound so titi up this malchick, say…”. One has to investigate to find the meaning. “Many of the lyrics are in Nadsat, the language Anthony Burgess invented for his teen hooligans in ‘A Clockwork Orange.’ There’s also some Polari thrown in for good measure.” (5). Polari is “Mainly gay men, although also lesbians, female impersonators, theatre people, prostitutes and sea queens. It was not limited to gay men, however. Straight people who were connected to the theatre also used it, and there are numerous cases of gay men teaching it to their straight friends” (6). This is another example of Bowie making us think, critique and define. He is not just saying words that are meaningless, but he is testing his listeners from beyond the grave. Bowie does not perpetuate nonsense when he performs. 

The Blackstar and Lazarus music videos are rooted in mystery, tragedy and Bowie’s past personas. Images in Blackstar acknowledges his former works and personalities from Major Tom in Space Oddity, which now lays as a skeleton in his space suit, and the black outfit with silver stripes photographed in 1974. In the photo, Bowie is drawing The Kabbalah Tree of Life Diagram. He wore similar outfits on the Glass Spiders and Outsiders tour. “It has been suggested (in online fan discourse) that the lines could relate to the concept of silver cords - the tethers that can supposedly be observed wrapped around and trailing behind the astral body of a person who is travelling between dimensions.” (4)

In the Lazarus video, Bowie wears this outfit. He sits and writes in a notebook with the jewel covered skull from the Blackstar video, displayed on the desk. I believe he is channeling various elements of his life to write more about himself for his family, and fans. As he writes, he sings “You know I’ll be free, Just like that Bluebird” twice in the song. It cuts back from the woman (the sickness trying to grasp him) to Bowie writing in the notebook. The direction, editing and meaning of the video is deliberate. Bowie does not want to show the sickness, but himself, in a form where he is free and believes in who he is and will always be.

After interviewing David Poe, a singer, musician, and producer, who was a vocalist alongside Gail Ann Dorsey and John Cameron Mitchell for the Blackstar Symphony in 2024, reflected and said, “Bowie's taking his lived experience and personal observations, wisdom, imagination, dreams, history, memory, and triangulating all of them to address the greatest mystery of all.” When making art memorable, its crucial creators put their subconscious and real life events into their work, leaving the audience wanting more. 

Daphne Brooks, Professor at Yale University, is fascinated and has passionately researched Bowie and hosted a talk at Yale in 2017 titled Blackstar Rising & The Purple Reign: Celebrating the Legacies of David Bowie and Prince. She is now editing a book, Blackstar Rising and the Purple Reign: The Sonic Afterlives of David Bowie and Prince. Brooks is intrigued about David Bowie's deep and complex relationship with intersectionality, politics, social justice politics, and black radical tradition concepts and much more. Brooks stated, “With Blackstar giving us these so called Easter eggs that weren't about seducing a consumer to continue consuming the work through the market, I would say, but rather to challenge listeners and fans of his art to take seriously the idea of narrative rigor, of critical rigor with regards to symbolism, having to do some real digging to think about the influences in his own canon, the ways in which he was engaging his entire canon and how that all again came together in Blackstar.” 

David Poe said, “Bowie engaged with what was happening in the art world, in music, but far beyond that, in film and literature, in poetry. It was a different space in the culture that required someone like him to fill it. The culture probably will not have time for someone like him for a while.” I believe this to be true. Bowie ends the album with his last song, I Can’t Give Everything. To me, this is the final goodbye. It is Bowie freely moving into a sunrise singing this song, with dancers and fans and family standing around him as he walks into the sunrise. When the sun fully rises, he is gone, and a new legacy or even a new and just as powerful artist awaits. The skies are warm and with no clouds because Bowie demanded a better future.