Epilogue: Lazarus (2013-2016)

it's two hours and twenty six minutes. The old friends were counting down the minutes to the release of David's latest single, where Are We Now, his first new music in a decade since his heart attack on stage at a German festival in two thousand four, he'd effectively abandoned his role as a public figure. That was the word on the street at least, and David was happy to keep it that way. His silence stoked rumors that his

days as a rock star were permanently behind him. There were no tours, no albums, no songs, no major in views for the latter half of the two thousands. David Bowie was retired. Instead, he reverted back to David Jones, a father, husband, and anonymous New Yorker. In just a few hours, that would all change. Bowie was about to make his comeback, though only a few people on the planet knew it. He'd recorded a new album entirely in secret, going to heroic lengths to keep it under wraps. It

was like something out of a spy movie. Code names were employed, nondisclosure agreements ensure that David's skeleton crew kept their mouths shut. Everything was on a need to know basis, and consequently, very few people knew a thing. Not even the head of David's label, Sony, was aware of David's plans until just a few weeks before his big announcement. Naturally, the exact was thrilled. A new Bowie album was always cause for celebration. But what about the PR campaign, he asked.

Publicity pushes require months of prep work and strategizing. There is no PR campaign. David replied, We're just going to drop it on the eighth of January. That's it. The countdown had commenced five four three two one. Where Are We Now? Was quietly uploaded to iTunes. Just after midnight in New York, a video for the melancholic Piano ballad was added to YouTube with no fanfare. The only notice

was a small message on David's mostly dormant website. It announced both the song and an upcoming album called The Next Day, due out two months later in March. David and Tony had their eyes glued to their computers for a few minutes, nothing happened. Then the avalanche began. Message boards melted down, Twitter went into overdrive, blogs blew up. TV news programs treated the event like a musical second coming.

The shock was universal. There had been nothing from David Bowie for years, and then boom, like the bolt of lightning that had once graced his face, he was back. Not only was he back, he had an entire album, the announcement, the song, the art, the video, all without a single leak, not even a hint to the world at large. Remember this was almost a full year before Beyonce's surprise album dropped. No one had seen anything like this. It was like magic, as if he'd conjured everything out

of thin air instantaneously. There's no other way to say it. David went viral. On one hand, it was a personal first. On the other, he had been perfecting the art of herality for nearly fifty years. Just look at his album covers, TV appearances, videos, magazine interviews and fashion statements. Now, by harnessing the infrastructure of the Internet that had been so quick the champion David had crafted the perfect moment for

the era. The fame David had sung about in nine had drastically altered by two thousand thirteen, mutated and magnified exponentially through camera phones, social media, and the seven digital news cycle. Celebrities were scrutinized like never before and stripped of every ounce of privacy. The easiest defense was to embrace it and share every detail of daily minutia. The thought of hiding something huge like an album drop from fans,

not to mention getting away with it was unfathomable. In David's early days, he'd been told to act like a star, even though at the time he was just a nobody. Now, actual stars were going out of their way to broadcast their own normality, making themselves relatable and accessible, allowing people to see themselves in Where's the Fun In that The illusion was gone. It was antithetical the David's whole m O. I always had a repulsive need to be something more

than human. He once said, I felt very puny as a human. I thought, the hell with that. I want to be superhuman. The surprise release of Where Are We Now was both an act of rebellion and the declaration that he was still superhuman. Stars were meant to project an aura of otherness that transcended the every day. In spite of this intrusive new world, David's mystique remained intact. Plus, it was fun. How often does a global headline make you smile? To top it off, it was David's birthday.

He was sixty six years old. Three years later, he'd release more music on his birthday. This time he would be his last. Hello and welcome to Off the Record, the show that goes beyond the songs and into the hearts and minds of rock's greatest legends. I'm your host, Jordan Runtug. We've come to the end of our season on the life, or rather lives of David Bowie. Today's episode starts and ends with a birthday, a former pagan ritual that has evolved over millennia into an annual celebration

of life. This seemed like an appropriate finale. We begin in when David re entered public life after a lengthy absence with Where Are We Now, his first new song in a decade, and we'll end with Black Star, his final album, released on his sixty ninth birthday in January of It's a record that many believed was his parting gift as he faced down the illness that would claim his body two days later. Intentional or not, it's a fitting goodbye, one that high lights his creative daring and

his fearless spirit. Ziggy Stardust, the Thin White Duke, Major Tom, the Cracked Actor, a ladin Sane. David Bowie had many guys is over the years, but for much of the late two thousands in early he was mostly known as a ghost. He was a fleeting apparition on the sidewalks of Manhattan, his home for the majority of his adult life. Bowie spottings usually took a moment to register because he looked so aggressively normal, though common sense would suggest otherwise.

On some level, people expected him to stroll the Soho streets dressed in a silver suit, orange hair and glad glitter. Instead, he was a middle aged man in a taddy gray hoodie, skinny jeans, and work boots. More often than not, he was doing mundane things like grocery shopping at the corner store, or struggling to hail a cab, or sweating it out out at a local gym. He was so successful at being low key that he mostly managed to evade the

dreaded paparazzi. On the rare occasions when he was snapped, he had a tendency to slip the photographer the finger. A true New Yorker, he'd stopped speaking to the press and for a time stopped contacting his friends, including Tony Visconti, prior to his heart attack on two thousand four is Reality Tour. They planned to record not one, but three new albums, including an electronic a side project sort of a techno tin machine, but then the subject was dropped.

He gave up his share of the studio they rented. He just wasn't interested in writing music anymore. He told one friend that he didn't have anything to say. I just need some downtime, he insisted. He was fed up with the music industry and no longer wished to participate. When a plaque was erected at London to honor the site where the Ziggy Stardust covered was shot, David was nowhere to be found. He turned down repeated request to represent Queen and Country at the Olympics in London, where

he was asked to perform heroes. Even the blog on his personal website went without update for years. While living in Berlin. Decades earlier, David had told a friend, I became a rock star. It's what I do, but it's not my whole life. Clearly he retained the sentiment. In the New millennium. Many would cite his heart attack as the reason for his public retreat. Rumors circulated that David was dreadfully ill, and news outlets had their ow bits ready to roll. The Flaming Lips even released a song

inn called is David Bowie Dying? David's friends denied it, claiming that he was planning a step back even before his health scare. In the midst of the reality tour, David told pianist Mike Garson at to this, I'm going to just be a father and live a normal life. Now that David was happily married to wife Aman and raising young daughter Lexi, the cons of fame finally outweighed

the pros the scale and steadily tipping for years. In the beginning, fame was a means to an end, away to get the resources to create as he saw fit. Simply put, fame was freedom these days, it was oppressive. Aside from scoring prime concert tickets or a good table at a restaurant, fame was, to use David's words, a pain in the ass, so he opted out. In a sense.

His heart attack, relatively minor as far as courtiac matters go, was like Bob Dylan's mythical motorcycle crash in nineteen sixty six, after which he was barely seen in public for a year and a half. The severity of the accident is debatable, but it had given the sixties poet laureate an excuse to stop rest and reassess and raised his family and the serenity of the Catskill Mountains. David followed Dylan's lead, purchasing a sixty two acre estate near the Upstate town

of Woodstock. He'd been captivated by what he called the spirituality of the region while recording Heathen in two thousand one. I love mountains, he once said. I'm a capricorn. I was born to be gallivanting on a peak somewhere. When I got up there, I flipped at how beautiful it is. There's a barrenness and a sturdiness and the rugged terrain that draws me Most of his time was spent in his New York apartment building, a former chocolate factory on

Lafayette Street in downtown Manhattan. His fifty square foot home was packed with books, most purchased down the street from McNally Jackson his favorite bookshop. It was history stuff, mainly the favorite of middle aged men everywhere. David deva hour and everything he could find on the topic, often finishing a book a day. When he wasn't reading, he was painting or making charcoal sketches, drawing inspiration from the mini museum of modern art that filled his living room. He

wasn't precious about it. He'd fallen out of love with one piece, a large metal sculpture, and he indulged his daughter's childlike whims to beat it with a hammer. He doated on his daughter, taking her for walks and proudly attending her school functions. But he also liked his own company. I've never actually been bored, he once said. Looking out a window and watching people is quite enough to keep

me occupied for half an hour. His quiet existence left him fulfilled in a way that rock stardom never had. David's more of a home body than I am Imman admitted at the time, at least I go to parties once in a while. David's long nights were clearly over. Once he called the front desk of his apartment comp X to complain that his neighbor was blasting music too loud. Granted, the neighbor in question was Courtney Love, but it was nine am and she was listening to Fleet with Max

Rumors and a volume she claims was quite respectful. Relations with other neighbors were warmer. Most remembered, David is very polite and a pure gentleman. One day he got stuck in the building's elevator. A teenaged boy who lived down the hall tried to raise his spirits by singing, here am I sitting in a tin can far above the world down the elevator shaft. David saw the humor and perked up. When he did leave the house. It was

often at dawn. He cherished as early morning strolls, relishing what he once called the city's magical transfer of power from the architectural to the human. Sometimes he'd get a hearty yo bowie from a local, but more often than not he was left alone. He frequented the dusty record shops in Greenwich Village in search of rare vinyl. Fans thumbing through the Bowie section were sometimes stunned the spot the man himself across the aisle, just another great diver.

He was known to get presciutto di Parma sandwiches and a bombologni at a neighborhood Italian grocery store. When he wasn't feeling that, he got a chicken sandwich with watercrest and tomatoes from Olives on Prince Street. The smell of freshly baked chocolate chip cookies sent his sweet tooth into overdrive, and he usually grabbed one of those two. He was a regular at Cafe Reggio, an ancient coffee bar where he could be seen sipping a cappuccino outside and writing

in his ever present notebook. Just up the street was Washington Square Park, David's favorite place in the city, a haven for generations of self proclaimed freaks. At one time. You could have heard Woody Guthrie singing there, or Alan Ginsberg read poetry. Just a few blocks away. It was a Electric Ladies studios where he'd cut fame his first American number one all those years before the song had been a meditation on the shallowness of show business notoriety.

These days, he was happy to leave it all behind his appreciation for art of all kinds and never wavered. I love seeing new theater, he told one reporter who managed to snag a brief quote. I love seeing new bands, art shows, everything I get everywhere, very quietly, he added, and never above fourteen Street, New York's official demarcation point between the bohemian and the establishment. He caught art house films at the Angelica Theater, sometimes sneaking in the multiple

movies if he felt like it. It's so easy, he'd marvel. His norm core attire and newly gray hair eliminated the need for any type of the skies. But to be extra cautious, he sometimes carried around a Greek language newspaper to convince passers by that he was just a Greek tourist who happened to look an awful lot like David Bowie. It worked like a charm. A friend of his, who it should be noted, was not famous, once gushed at

length about an art exhibit he'd recently seen. The friend urged David to go see it, before stopping himself Oh, you can never go there, there's too many people. David gave a sly smile and said, oh, you'd be surprised the places I'm able to go. He was never reclusive, a fact that spared him the sad fade of people like Greta Garbow or J. D. Salinger, whose passion for privacy had the unfortunate effect of drawing even more attention

to themselves. Instead, David hid in plain sight. He attended charity gallas and fashion events with a man cutting a dapper but silent figure as they walked the red carpet arm in arm. In two thousand nine, he attended the premiere for Moon, a feature film directed by his son Zoe, now going by the more conventional name Duncan Jones. David also gave a handful of performances, all one offs where

he's sang just two or three numbers. The first on stage endeavor following his heart attack was at the Fashion Rocks event in September of two thousand five. For reasons known only to himself, he came dressed in a bandaged arm and a black eye. He seemed uncharacteristically nervous as he's sang life on Mars with just piano accompaniment. Perhaps he was gun shy after the dramatic end of his

last show where he wound up in the hospital. He chilled out later in the evening when he performed two songs with one of his favorite new bands, Arcade Fire. He must have enjoyed himself, because a week later he climbed on stage at their Central Park gig to help do a twosong encore. Then and may have two thousand six, David paid tribute to Pink Floyd founder Sid Barrett by joining the band's guitarist David Gilmore on stage in London

for two songs. In addition to being a formative musical influence, Sid's abandonment of fame in favor of an elusive suburban existence surely must have resonated with David. Six months later, on November nine, two thousand and six, he did a three song set at to Keep a Child Alive benefit at New York's Hammerstein Ballroom. He played wild as the Wind Fantastic Voyage and also changes as a duet with

Alicia Keys. There was brief talk of a proper comeback show at a New York festival he was curating in two thousand seven, but it ultimately came to nothing. I'm not thinking of touring, he said in New York Times profile of them on I'm comfortable he never would tour again. David also kept busy with his acting, playing a series

of offbeat roles in the late two thousands. He took the part of the iconoclastic inventor Nicola Tesla in two thousand six Is the Prestige, but only after director Christopher Nolan quite literally begged him to do it. He was more willing to lend his services to a small budget indie film called August. Like most everything else he did

these days, it was a passion project. He also voiced a character for SpongeBob square Pants, Lexi's favorite cartoon, but his most notorious role in this period was for Ricky Gervais. David had become friends with the comedian after watching gervais BBC sitcom The Office. He loved it so much that he sent Ricky his version of a fan email. I watched, I laughed, what do I do now? dB? Ricky was a Bowie super fan and hadfortuitously just come home from purchasing a fresh CD copy of a Laddin saying it

was kismut. As their relationship solidified, Ricky plucked up the courage to ask David to be in his new series Extras. Perverting his hero worship, he cast David as himself, but an especially mean version. He meets Ricky's character, a hapless dealist actor, and is inspired to write a song on the spot called Stupid Little Fat Man. Ricky sent David the suitably cruel lyrics he was to sing and asked him to put his own tune to it. Something retro

cam Ricky's request, like a Life on Mars. Oh sure, David replied, sarcastically, I'll just whip up a quick Life on Mars for you. Huh. Ricky appreciated the absurdity of the suggestion and they both burst in the laughter, but David complied and the song is surprisingly catchy. The scene is easily the funniest single moment in David's career, as he leads a crowded pub through choruses of Little Fat Man with a pug nosed face while Ricky's character looks

on mortified. He reprised the song on stage in May of two thousand seven, when David introduced Ricky at Madison Square Garden for his American stand up debut. This would be technically David Bowie's last ever live performance. Many fans conveniently forget this. Instead, they prefer to remember whose duet with Alicia keys On changes David's unofficial theme tune as his concert swan song. Dramatic, yes, profound, certainly, but there's

a certain degree of poetry. And David, clad in an immaculate tux standing in the spotlight at somebody else's show singing an acapella song about a chubby little loser, it's a much more fun curtain call. Though he had abandoned his own musical ventures, David provided the odd backing vocal cameo for a number of artists. He passed on a song by Coldplay, bluntly telling Chris Martin that he didn't think it was any good, But he sang on tracks by the likes of Scarlett Johansson and the Danish alt

rock group Cashmere. He particularly admired the Brooklyn band TV on the radio and saying harmonies on their two thousand six song Province. In the studio, he dispensed precious words of wisdom to the younger musicians stay strange, he advised, and don't bend to his closest friends. David seemed content to live in rock and roll exile. Then, in the fall of producer Tony Visconti, got the call, how would you like to make some demos? David asked. Tony did

his best to hide his shock. He made it sound so casual, but David's revelation was in the same league as the Beatles deciding to get back together. It was no use trying to determine why or what had changed. Obviously, David finally felt he had something to say. Like early sessions for Low in nine six, David wasn't sure if these new songs would ever see the light of day. To keep the pressure off, he decided to keep the recording secret, allowing him creative freedom without speculation from fans

and the media, or from meddling record label executives. He invited guitarist Jerry Leonard to the sessions with an email. The subject line read stumb, an old Yiddish word meaning stay quiet, keep it to yourself. David urged, don't tell a soul. Though he undoubtedly trusted his friends, David sent out non disclosure agreements just to be on the safe side. Within days, David, Tony Jerry, and drummer Sterling Campbell were in a tiny eight by eight dungeon of a rehearsal

room in New York's East Village. Quarters were cramped, and the four men found themselves gasping for air as they sketched out David's songs from a little four track recorder he carried around. They met there every day for a week, tweaking chord structures as David sang wordless melodies on top. He prefaced each session by saying that it was all experimental and might not go anywhere. Let's just get together

and make some music, he'd say. At the end of the week, David took the tapes in his backpack and disappeared for four months. Typical. By April, he was ready to work again, though still under the cloak of top secrecy. His commitment to privacy was tested before they had even recorded a note. Owners of the studios he booked couldn't keep their mouth shut for more than a day before

leaking the news to the press. David immediately canceled. Instead, they switched the sessions to the Magic Shop, a studio conveniently located just steps from David's Soho apartment behind unmarked steel doors. The studio's presence on the busy city street was much like David's own. If you weren't looking, you didn't know it was there. Visconti visited the Magic Shop prior to the booking to stress the importance of secrecy

for his anonymous V I P. Client. Even the studio's owner was unaware of who the sessions berefore until David walked in on May two than to begin recording. The studios interns were always sent home for the day whenever David held a session, and the in house staff was reduced to just two. Everyone involved was required to sign an n d A from the musicians and engineers all the way to the guy who brought David's double mocky

auto coffee order from Lack Colombe down the street. Though strict about his privacy, they had a sense of humor about it all. But we became known as the Secret, as in has the Secret come in Today. At the end of each session, David would snatch the sheet music off of every music stand with a comedic flourish before dramatically locking them away in his briefcase as if they were government files or nuclear reactor codes. Sessions continued sporadically

for the next two years. For comparison, Low had come together and around two months, never before one of his album has been so drawn out, gone with around the clock recordings sessions that had characterized young Americans and station the Station. Instead, they worked very humane hours in by ten am and home in time for David to have dinner with his family. Given the long gestation period, one would think that David's cover would have been blown at

some point. There were a few close calls, like the time the Canadian band Metric arrived at the Magic Shop unannounced in the studio owner had to physically block the door and tell them to come back later. Another time, guitarist Earl Slick was outside the studio having a cigarette

when he noticed the cameraman's tripod across the street. Everyone knew that Earl was one of David's go to guys, and a shot of him outside of a studio down the street from David's apartment was sure to raise some alarms. He stubbed out the butt on the sidewalk and beat a hasty retreat inside. David was able to keep things quiet,

mostly because his team was so small. Back in the high flying main man days of the early seventies, his entourage had been enormous, with dozens of people looking after him, and that had ended in chaos and lawsuits. These days, he managed himself with the help of just two people, a business lawyer named Bill's is Black and his fiercely devoted p A Coco Schwab. His label deal stipulated that he didn't have an A and R rep supervising his work,

a move that's highly unique in the music world. As a result, no one at Sony knew a thing about the thirty odd tracks he'd amassed. No one anywhere new a thing. During breaks in the sessions, Visconti would walk the streets of New York, listening the rough edits of their new songs and his headphones. On his strolls, he'd passed people in Bowie t shirts, a fairly ubiquitous site in downtown New York. He couldn't help but smile, boy, he thought to himself, If you only knew what I

was listening to. David Bowie's new song where Are We Now? And it's accompanying video were released in the early morning of January eight, his sixty six birthday. A handful of Bowie file journalists were primed that something interesting would be landing in their inbox in the wee small hours, but other than that, there was nothing in the way of promotion or publicity. From both an artistic and a practical standpoint,

he didn't need it. The headline snowballed instantly. The single became the top iTunes download by the end of the day and would shortly hit number six on the UK charts, his biggest hit in his home country since Absolute Beginners In. David joked to his friend Bono that for once he

wasn't outshone by his birthday twin Elvis Presley. The message on his website referenced this time away, David's the kind of artist who writes and performs what he wants when he wants it, read when he has something to say, as opposed to something to sell. Throwing shadows and avoiding the industry treadmill is ferry David Bowie on the surface where are We Now? As a wistful remembrance of his time in West Berlin, a city that both technically and

spiritually no longer exists. The passage of time is illustrated by the fall of the Berlin Wall, evoking a vivid before and after. David affects a weary croon frail with age to name check his old haunts. In the song, he wanders his former home, his one time clinic and sanctuary, and he finds that it no longer resembles the place he'd loved in the prime of his life. Had to get the train from pot stammer Platts, he sings, you never knew that I could do that. Indeed, this was

never something he could have done. In the seventies. A busy transit hub prior to World War Two, pot stammer Platte station stood abandoned during Bowie's Berlin era, caught in the death strip between East and West that lay just outside of Hansa's studios, where Bowie was hard at work on Low and Heroes. The station reopened after the wall came down, marking just one of the many ways that

Berlin had changed for the better. But the transformation gave Bowie a twinge of melancholy as he mourned a pass that was undoubtedly troubled, but still his own. On Where Are We Now, David is a man in the twilight of his life, singing of his lost youth and the

ghosts that he sees at every turn. Memories come flooding back nights at the Jungle, a favored nightclub where he would dance with iggy pop, and trips to the glamorous Cadave department store, bike rise to the die Brucker Museum, or breaking new musical ground at hans As Studios, cherished moments for him that happened to be rock and roll myths.

To the rest of us, it was an irreplaceable, unmissable experience, David once recalled of his years in Berlin and probably the happiest time in my life up to that point. The song is jarring for its nakedly nostalgic look at David's own personal past. He was never known for being overly sentimental or overly revealing. The words are almost as much of a surprise as the Out of the Blue release.

Newly sixty six years old. He could be forgiven for being a little maudlin in a sense it was expected, But since when did David Bowie do anything that was expected of him, perhaps doing the predictable. The type of song that's appropriate for a man his age is the most unexpected thing of all. The music video suggests it might be a tease. Directed by Tony Ousler, it features images of Bowie's Berlin stopping grounds, including his former apartment

in Schoonenberg. Housler's wife was cast in the clip due to a resemblance to Coco Schwab David's Closest Confident in the seventies. Their faces are projected onto a pair of conjoined, misshapen dummies. Electronic effigies behind them. Footage of Bowie's past flashes across a projection screen. The loft where they sit is littered with junk, like a family basement or a crowded attic. It's detritus of a life lived to the fullest.

The real Bowie appears at the end of the video, standing off to the side, watching this puppet theater version of his memories before him. Juxtaposed with the flesh and blood Bowie, the dummies seem hopelessly hokey. It's performative in the nostalgia, a conceptual performance piece acted out for our pleasure, or is it in the video, the real David wears a T shirt that reads Song of Norway, a reminder of a very personal memory, one known by only a few.

It was David was dating his first love, a dancer named Hermione Farthingale. They lived together and sang together. It was the happiest he'd ever been. Then Harmony left home to go abroad and film a small role in a movie called The Song of Norway. She fell in love with someone else on the set, and she ended her relationship with David. It was a formative experience in his young life, one that, by his own admission, messed him

up for years to come. The Song of Norway is a summation of his earliest and deepest heartbreak and genuine and personal grief, seen alongside the images of Berlin, his very public past. David seems to be sending a message with the shirt. You may think you know all about me, but you'll never know how I felt, and you will never know me. David never explained the video or the song.

He did no interviews for the release of Where Are We Now or his new album The Next Day, which was released a great acclaim in March, giving him his first UK number one album in twenty years. One critic described it as the greatest comeback album in rock and roll history, and there are many who agree. But David maintained his silence and the press for the rest of his life. The closest he ever came as a request

from novelist Rick Moody, whose books David admired. Moody asked for a list of words that hinted at the themes of the album. David responded, but the list of forty two three for each song. The ones for Where Are We Now consist of interface, flitting, and mauer, the German word for wall. As is so often the case with David's art, the interpretation is up to you. Aside from that, David turned down all requests for interviews. Instead, Tony Visconti

handled the press as best he could. He was emphatic about David's strong health, a frequent topic of tabloid gossip since his heart attack. He also went to great lengths to stress that the downbeat, slightly mournful lead single wasn't indicative of the rest of the album. Many of the songs on the next day are up tempo tracks beefed up by Earl slick and Jerry Leonard's crunchy lead guitar lines,

but the mood of the album is indeed dark. Valentine's Day delivers a sobering message about gun control by referencing a two thousand eight school shooting. I'd Rather Be High ventures inside the mind of a seventeen year old soldier fighting in the desert. The title track alludes to religious tormentors and the hypocrisy of the church, and the album's closer Heat was so bleak that Visconti requested an explanation.

It's not about me, David insisted. But the song The Stars Are Out Tonight certainly contained the kernel of David's personal experience with fame. In the song, he sings the stars are never sleeping, dead ones and the living. For David, there's no escape from the phenomenon that he once likened to a very luxuriant mental hospital. The only time you're let out, he said, is when you have to earn

money for just about everyone but yourself. The clever video for The Stars Are Out Tonight subverts the notion of celebrity by depicting David and co star Tilda Swindon as ordinary folks. Who are hounded by famous people For all the heavy themes, the next day was remembered as the record where David Bowie faced his reputation. Nowhere is this more obvious and the art that accompanied the album it was the work of Jonathan Barnbrook, had previously designed the

artwork for Heathen and Reality. The single art for where Are We Now took a shot of David performing in and rotated in a D and eighty degrees, literally turning his legacy on its head. The album went even further, obscuring the iconic cover of Heroes with a white square in the middle, on which the new title was written in simple black lettering. It ingeniously played with the expectation of David's history, which was always looming in the background

no matter what he did. Around the same time, David's pass was put on display in a much more literal way. Curators at the vict Tory and Albert Museum in London had planned on doing an exhibition of artifacts that had belonged to Elvis Presley. When the king's estate pulled out, the organizers moved on to Elvis's birthday twin. Not only was David interested, but he'd done most of their work

for them. Something of a pack rat by nature, he'd saved everything, costumes, props, sketches, all lovingly preserved in boxes and acid free tissue paper. He'd hired an archivist to tend to his massive memorability collection, totaling some seventy five thousand items from throughout his career, with new pieces being purchased all the time from auction houses and private sellers, David had cataloged his life. Perhaps he was hyper aware of his own iconography, or he was just more sentimental

than most people gave him credit for. Though we distanced himself from the exhibit publicly, David, one of the most image conscious musicians of his generation, took an active interest in how his life was being presented. His background and the visual arts gave him an innate understanding of curation. He appreciated their non linear approach the storytelling. Rather than going chronologically, they organized the objects thematically, encapsulating the cities, people,

and artists that had shaped David's work. Tony Visconti created a unique Bowie Mega mix from the master tapes of more than sixty songs to serve as a soundtrack as visitors floated through David's world. The only thing David refused to land was his cream colored saxophone, the one he wielded during his very first time on stage with the Conrads at a Pta fair in ninety two. It was

just too precious to leave his care. The v n A curators had low expectations for the exhibit they called David Bowie Is, but it surpassed their wildest hopes when it opened in March of two thousand thirteen, becoming the fastest selling show in the museum's history. People were curious to see what the fiercely guarded Bowie had in his closet. After years without communicating with fans, David was eager to share. David Bowie Is eventually traveled to a total of twelve

museums around the world, attracting some two million visitors. One of them was David himself. He took him on and Lexi soon after it opened in London, early one morning before the crowds. The experience was powerful. It was like he was dying and his life was flashing before his eyes.

Vintage TVs, artfully arranged on the gallery floor flickered with images of his younger self performing There were the costumes, of course, Curators cherry pick sixty out of the several hundred available, displaying creations by Alexander McQueen, Vivian Westwood and Kansai Yamamoto. But that was just the start. They had the E. M. S. Briefcase synthesizer, the Brian Eno used on the Berlin Trilogy. He'd given it to Bowie in with a note look after it patch it up in

strange ways. It's surprising that it can still make noises that nothing else can make. His beloved Oblique strategies cards were also thrown in for good measure. There were other gifts from famous friends. A doodle from John Lennon, sketched while in the studio recording Fame inscribed for video Dave with Love, a Western Union telefax from Elvis wishing him

luck on his nineteen seventy six tour. Attendees could trace David's unshakable ambition, from hand drawn tor posters for early bands like the Conrads and the Delta Lemons to elaborate

designs for the theatrical rock extravaganzas of the seventies. Then there was the assorted grab bag of ephemera keys to his Berlin apartment, the velvet underground test pressing that had sent his musical mind into overdrive back in nineteen sixty six, the coke spoon that had helped him through the Long Diamond Dogs tour, a tissue blotted with David Ziggy era lipstick displayed like a holy relic. A letter from formally

confirming his new stage name, David Bowie. The contents of his existence were spread before him, arranged for public consumption. His life had become art. The reflection continued in with a new musical retrospective. It was the first to cover his entire half century career, from David Jones to David Bowie. The triple disc set featured three separate covers, each of David at different periods in his life, staring into a mirror. Though taken years apart, they're eerily similar enough to make

one wonder if you've been planning this for decades. The first is his Ziggy Stardust incarnation, flame haired and freakishly pay all almost translucent. The next is the thin white Duke, dapper as ever in a suit in fedora, and finally the current Bowie, a handsome, if nondescript man in late middle age shot from behind. His face is almost completely out of frame, as if a man in retreat. All three covers bear the title nothing has Changed. Of course,

the images tell a different story. Comparing as many selves, they could all be totally different people. The only giveaway or is mismatched eyes, a permanent reminder of the teenage tussle he'd had with his best friend all those years ago. Before there was ever a David Bowie, there were those eyes destined to become his trademark feature. The duality was striking, one steely, blue and strong, constantly scanning the horizon for what's to come, the other black and moody, damaged, looking

inward at the equally dark places in his soul. The two perspectives formed a singular creative vision which led him the fame and fortune over the years. The face that had stared back at him in the mirror had changed radically through makeup, hair, clothes, and just the ravages of time, but those eyes remained constant. The title and art for Nothing Has Changed was a challenge to all who labeled David and attention seeking, changeling, or even worse, a musical chameleon.

After all, a chameleon is a creature who changes to fit in with its surroundings. David never made any effort to fit in anywhere. With its provocative name, nothing has changed dared listeners to look closer and find the common thread in his wildly diverse work. The tracks went in reverse order, from his newest song all the way back to ninet Isaza Jane, the first recording he ever released.

In a sense, it was full circle. The new song he recorded for the compilation Bear's the same jazz influence as he soaked up in the early sixties with the unwieldy name Sue or in the Season of Crime. The song was recorded with jazz composer Maria Schneider. David had seen her perform with her big band at Birdland, Manhattan's

legendary jazz haunt. Together, they worked on an arrangement for his new song, with its lyrics inspired by a seventeenth century john Ford play called Tis a Pity She's a Whore. As they bonded over their shared love of players like Gil Evans and Stan Kenton, Maria recommended David check out the quartet led by the sax player in her orchestra Donnie mccastling. The group had a regular gig at fifty five Bar, a Granwich village hole in the wall. David

dropped by to catch their set in June. Entering dank downstairs bar, he was transported back to the Soho clubs he frequented with his half brother Terry. As a team, it was like a homecoming. The wild howl of mccastl and Sacks reminded him of his passion for John Coltrane and Jerry mulligan. As a student at Bromley Tech, a guidance counselor had asked David what he wanted to be when he grew up. David had responded, without hesitation, I want to be a sax player in a modern jazz quartet.

Somewhere along the way, his gold been derailed by rock and roll, but mccastlan and his band, these guys had it. Mccastlan, meanwhile, was keenly aware that a living legend was sitting just steps away in the tiny bar watching him play. No pressure, he channeled his nervous energy and it went unusually intense performance, and it didn't go unnoticed. David approached him afterwards. And

said with genuine admiration, Wow, that was really loud. He stayed in touch with McCastle, and after the recording session for Sue emailing him new demos and song fragments to go over with his band. Amusingly, mccastlan was unfamiliar with the majority of David's work. His only real frame of reference was Let's Dance, and that was simply due to its ubiquity back in the eighties. He offered to do a deep dive in the Bowie's extensive back catalog, but

David talked him out of it. That's old stuff, he said, I'm into different things now. Plans were set in place to record a new album with Donnie mccastlan's group. A day before sessions were due to begin in January of David called Tony Visconti to a meeting. Oh, thought Tony, this sounds ominous. He wondered if he was about to get fired. David greeted his old friends before saying I have something to show you. Then he removed his wool cap. He was complete lee bald, and his eyebrows were gone.

I have cancer, he told Tony. He just come from a chemotherapy session. Tony got terry. David told him not to cry, and then the matter was dropped. Instead, they discussed the recording planned for the next day. David had more than he wanted to say. It was late one night in David Bowie was in the midst of his outside tour, criss crossing the United States by bus. Most of the entourage was asleep, but David was wide awake. He sat down with pianist Mike Garson, a veteran of

the Ziggy Star Dust shows. Garson had been with David longer than any other musician. He was a valued collaborator and trusted friend. They started talking one of those expansive conversations that you have at one am. David had something he wanted to get off his chest. Years earlier, he'd seen a psychic and the reading had been disturbing. They had told him that David would die at age sixty

nine or seventy. Though the meeting had occurred nearly a decade prior, he'd never forgotten it and it nagged at him. David was diagnosed with liver cancer in mid when he was sixty seven. Though he certainly fought with strength and bravery. The question of fate must have weighed heavily on his mind. The chemo treatments were grueling. Sometimes he would call Tony Visconti obstensively to talk shop, but also for some reassurance.

Don't worry. The producer insisted, you're going to live one hopes. David reply in a voice barely above a whisper. Don't get too excited about that. Few outside David's innermost circle knew about his illness. Like the sessions for the next day, the information was shared on a need to know basis. Consequently, if you did, he threw himself into his work. It was the best bomb to take his mind off the

painful treatment and the psychics unsettling prediction. In the early months, he settled in at the Magic Shop Studios along with Visconti and Donnie mccastlan's quartet. They drew inspiration from d'angelo's long awaited comeback album, Black Messiah, which had just been released a few months earlier. A little later, they dove into Kendrick Lamar's Wrap Opus to Pimp a Butterfly. The respective R and B and hip hop leanings of both

were shot through with traces of jazz. It was a technique David would try to emulate on his new record. Avoid Rock and roll became the familiar refrain of the sessions as David turned his ear to other influences like experimental rap, trio death grips and electronic duo Boards of Canada. The recordings were split into roughly a week a month throughout the spring of The free flowing creative spirit was established on the first day when David told the group

just go have fun. Anything you're hearing, I want you to go for it. Despite his health, his energy was high. David's eyes sparkled and he belted it on the mic like he was on stage at Wembley. His assistants dog Muffin, became something of a mascot for the sessions and always brought a smile to David's face. He and the band we'd eat sandwiches for lunch in the studio lounge, and they celebrated his birthday together when a mon stopped by was sushi. He was sixty eight years old. The unnerving

countdown in David's head ticked on. Mortality had been a recurring theme in his music in recent years, but the words for this work in progress understandably cut a little deeper. The tone was obvious enough for Tony Visconti to approach David early on in the sessions You Can Eat Bastard. He said, you're writing a farewell album, aren't you. David didn't confirm or deny, he just laughed. By midyear, his prognosis looked good. He was responding well to the chemotherapy,

and his cancer went into remission. David was cautiously optimistic, Well, don't celebrate too quickly. We'll see how it goes. By any metric, David Bowie had sampled more of life than anyone could ever hope to. Iman once said, I'd like to think there's nothing he hasn't seen. But there was one sizeable item the cross off his bucket list, a musical.

He dreamed of writing one since he was a teenager aping Anthony Newley's Stagey Crew, and he'd been not so suddenly hinting at this ambition for years, and it influenced nearly everything he did, from his ziggy stardust alter ego to the over the top stage productions of the Glass Spider Tour. His album One Outside had been a sort of radio drama with songs and narration. Heck, the elaborately staged and choreographed Diamond Dogs Tour had originally been intended

as a Broadway style version of George Orwell. David had danced around the idea of a musical for his entire career, and now he was ready to go for it. He called Robert Fox, a theater producer he'd known for decades, to try to figure out how to get the ball rolling. He told Fox that he wanted to write a musical based on Walter Tevis's book The Man Who Fell to Earth. David had starred in director Nick rogueventy six film adaptation, playing the role of the stranded alien known on Earth

as to Almost Jerome Newton. Filmed in the midst of David's personal native in Los Angeles, the character had remained with him for months. Newton's loneliness and isolation informed the stark, emotional soundscapes of Low and Heroes. David's songs fit Newton's voice perfectly in a way he never fully shook Thomas Jerome Newton. They were psychically bonded. Acting as producer, Fox hired Irish playwright and the Walsh and avant garde theater director Ivo van Hove. Van Hove was a Bowie fanatic,

but he had some scheduling issues. Bowie begged him to change his plans. We have to make it now, it has to happen. His urgency made Van Hove reconsider and workshops went ahead as planned. In New York, the play was called Lazarus, named for a new song David had written that was included in the production. It's sort of an enigmatic sequel to the Man Who Fell to Earth. The obtuse plot centers around the older Newton hold up in his apartment, dulling the pain of his heartbreak with

cheap gin. He calls himself a dying man who can't die. Then he meets another lost soul, a thirteen year old girl who revives his corroded spirit and gives him hope that he can return home. Ultimately, she sets him free. If the David Bowie Is exhibition allowed David to see his life from an audience's perspective, then Lazarus, with his existential themes and its use of his back catalog of songs, allowed David to see his soul on display. Autobiographical details

pop up frequently. At one point, Newton imagines visiting occupied Berlin. One character in the show describes Newton as quote, sort of sad, sort of unknowable in the way that you imagine reclusive, rich, eccentric men to be. They might as well be describing David. It's no coincidence that the little girl in the show is the same age that David's daughter, Lexi was when he co wrote it. Casting began in the fall of Robert Fox flew to New York for

a preliminary meeting, expecting to see David. Instead, he found David's business manager waiting with an open laptop. David spoke to Fox through Skype and informed him of his condition. Because of his illness, he would have to miss some rehearsals, but his commitment to the project was total. He enjoyed the surreal experience of hearing other people sing his songs to him. He was especially taken with co star Christa

Miliati's anguished version of Changes. When he first heard it, David turned to the producers and gasped, I'm so glad I wrote that song. They would describe his face during rehearsals as that of a delighted and amazed child seeing something brought to life that was unexpected and joyful. With actor Michael C. Halls the lead, the show went from the planning stages to opening its limited run at the New York Theater Workshop in just twelve months, warp speed

as far as musicals are concerned. When David dropped by rehearsals, he was heard to mother and more than one occasion, I'd really like to see this. The producers understood the gravity of these words and acted accordingly. They got it done. Tickets to the entire run of Lazarus sold out within hours. David wasn't well enough to attend the previews, but he was there for opening night on December seven. The show was part sci fi drama, part rock spectacle, and part

video art installation. Its dialogue was kept short, elliptical, opaque, and at times disorienting. The ending Bowie co wrote is hopeful but typically open ended. Newton and his Muse sing a poignant version of Heroes Bowie's celebration of the little triumphs that comprised daily survival. It's arranged as a delicate piano ballad. As it concludes, Newton lays on the floor. On the video screen behind him, his ghostly image blasts

off on a rocket ship. It's unclear whether it's death or an escape from Earth, a place where he never truly felt at home. Perhaps it's both. David took the stage at curtain call, beaming and his T shirt and blazer at a dearly held dream had come true. The press noted how Grady looked. They hadn't caught on about his health. Almost no one knew a thing, but it was clear to the cast and crew that he was struggling. After his bows, he collapsed backstage. He was too sick

to make it to the after party. But even in his weekends eight he told director Ivo van Hove about plans to start a second musical. Van Hove was thrilled at the prospect, yet he couldn't shake the sense that he would never see David again. David then left the theater, running the gauntlet of fans and photographers one more time. David Bowie had just taken his final bow. It was his last public appearance. From then on, he would communicate

with fans only through his music. That fall, he released the first track from his sessions with Donnie mccastlan's group. It was called Black Star. The multipart suite is an uncategorizable blend of free jazz, atonal, Gregorian chants, and house influenced rhythms. At just under ten minutes, it's as long as song since Station the Station. That track had been the definitive document of his descend into hell forty years earlier. Black Star has more of an upward trajectory. It opens

with an ominous drone. The sparse melody on spools as Bowie duets with himself to liturgical voices, intoning the words like a Byzantine mass or a spell in the villa of our men burns a solitary candle. He sings a fragile beacon of hope amid the darkness, or a humble memorial to a soul who was dead or dying. The overtones become even more unsettling with references to the day of execution. At the center of it all, he sings at the center of it all lines that echo notorious

Satanist Alistair Crowley, a frequent Bowie muse. Suddenly, it's unclear whether this is a sacred rite or an occult ritual. David had engaged in the supernatural extensively during his spiritual crisis in the mid seventies, when he was driven to the brink of standard consciousness by self induced insanity. Now on the threshold of life and death, the constructs of day to day humanity were again melting away, and he

contemplated those same themes again. But then the music changes direction, elevating listeners above the clouds with a piece that can only be described as heavenly. A different Bowie is there to greet us, singing earnestly and plaintively. Something happened on the day he died. Spirit rose a meter and stepped aside. Somebody else took his place and bravely cried, I'm a black star. I'm a black star. He repeats the refrain again and again. I'm not a film star, he asserts.

I'm not a pop star. I'm not a Marvel star, I'm not a flamstar. I'm not a gangster. I'm a black star. In the months and years that followed, fans and critics would debate the meaning of David's personal rose bud. Most obviously, it follows his lifelong fascination with space, an extraterrestrial phenomena. In theoretical physics, a black star is a more recent tangent of a black hole. It's a collapsing star that's close to reaching singularity and space time ceases

to exist within it. The star has died, yet it still releases its energy, and definitely, in short, it's interstellar immortality. Of course, the title would inspire a host of other interpretations. Most intriguing is a connection to Elvis Presley. The two had a strange kind of synchronicity. They had shared a birthday,

a long time record label, and musical infamy. In nineteen sixty, Pressley had recorded a song called black Star, which featured the lyrics every man has a black star, a black star over his shoulder, and when a man sees his black star are he knows his time has come. The track would go unreleased until the nineties. It's certainly possible

that David was inspired by his fellow Capricorn. He was a fan, after all, and apparently wrote his song Golden Years as an offering to the King, but it seems unlikely that Bowie wrote black Star as a response to an extremely obscure Pressley cut. There's also a persistent belief that the song title was an oblique reference to his illness. A black star is indeed a radiologic term for a type of cancer lesion, but for breast cancer, not the

type David battled. Other black Star theories pushed the bounds of believability to their breaking point. It's named after a secret government space plane program, or David's friend most Deaf's hip hop group, or a Greek anarchist terrorist organization, or even an episode of the British drama Peaky Blinders, a show David was no to love. The last theory is pretty laughable, but the song did actually have its genesis

and a TV program. Filmmaker Johann Rennick was directing a six part crime series called The Last Panthers and approach Bowie to do a theme tune. It was a total long shot, but to his surprise, David said yes. The result was an early version of black Star, which was reworked for David's album. When it came time to make a video for the song, it seemed only right that David asked Rennick. The pair worked together, with the director going off a series of David's sketches and rough storyboards.

David appears in much of the short film as a figure they nicknamed button Eyes due to his white blindfold like a man as he sings on the day of execution, awaiting death. The video opens with a solar eclipse and an astronaut lying dead on a desolate landscape. His helmet opens to reveal a jewel encrusted skull. Later, a skeleton belonging to the doomed space man floats into the ether.

Though Bowie never said definitively the identity of the astronaut was cleared to Rennick it was Major Tom, back for one final appearance. Unlike his other creations, David retained a special fundness for him. Since his debut in nineteen sixty nine, Major Tom became David's only true recurring character, cropping up and not only Space Oddity, but Nighties, Ashes to Ashes, and a remix of Hello, Space Boy. In more than just his first introduction to the public, he'd become a

sort of totem for David. The persona had taken him higher and further than he'd ever dreamed. For all of his fascination with space, David would tellingly admit that the notion of space flight terrified him. I wouldn't dream of getting on a spaceship. He once said, you'd scare the hell out of me. Major Tom helped give him courage to go where he didn't dare as an ordinary man. In Black Star, Major Tom has finally come home, but by symbolically killing him off, David was killing a part

of himself. The album Black Star was slated for release in October, but production delays on the music videos meant that the record hit shelves on January David sixty nine birthday. Two days later. The psychic would be proven right and Black Star would be consecrated as David Bowie's last record. It's a distinction that would forever color and possibly distort the songs that contained. Black Star has earned a reputation as David's knowing goodbye to his fans, a parting gift.

In Tony Visconti's words, it isn't hard to see why. There are two many clues to make an amiric coincidence. Even the cover has a distinctly funereal air. It bore a simple black star with astral fragments that, with a little imagination, spell out Bowie, if you weren't looking, you wouldn't even know he was there. Borne out of discussions about black holes, the Big Bang, and the end of

the universe, Jonathan Barnbrook's design evoked mortality. The vinyl edition had the star cut out of the sleeve, leaving the record exposed, allowing it to degrade over time, another comment on life's tendency to damage and wound. A morbid streak certainly ran through most of the songs, including the title track. A rerecorded version of Sue contains lines such as the clinic call the X rays fine and references to tombstones

and graves. On dollar Days, he considers his successes and his failures, weighing them both as he contemplates the afterlife, which appears as the English evergreens of his homeland. Ultimately, these are poetic liberties, taken with his lyrics, words that David never lived to explain, and probably wouldn't even if he had, But there's little need for interpretation. On Lazarus, the last single David released in his lifetime, the facts

are potent on their own. It takes its name from Lazarus of Bethany, a biblical figure that Jesus resurrects four days after his burial. The sickness will not end in death, Christ tells his followers. David wrote the song shortly after his cancer diagnosis. It's difficult to read the message as anything other than a dying man yearning for immortality, just one more rebirth. The opening lines are arresting. Look up here, I'm in heaven, David sings, as if speaking from beyond

the grave. I've got scars that can't be seen. He punctuates the lines with furious slashes on a stratocaster given to him by his old friend and rival, Mark Boland. He received it the last time they met, just weeks before his fatal car crash at age. The instrument had becomes something of a talisman for his fallen musical brother, and perhaps a monument to David's own endurance and survival. I've got drama can't be stolen, he continues. Everybody knows

me now. His work, never lacking at theatricality, will live on, and no one can take that away. This way or no way. You know. I'll be free, just like that bluebird. I'll be free, he concludes. The image evokes a poem by Charles Bukowski, a favorite of Boys who described his inner life, his privateself as his bluebird, one that he struggles to protect from the gaze of the unforgiving modern world.

The long fade ends with a sax's howl, sounding uncannily like a human voice, expressing wordless sounds of raw grief. The music video brims with macab images. It opens with David writhing in a hospital bed. Some of the pain was undoubtedly real. To give the appearance of levitation, the bed was suspended from the ceiling. The disorienting angle makes his feverish malaise palpable. The scene is made all the more distressing by the metal button eyes on the blindfold

that he claws in agony. Ancient Greeks would place coins on the eyes of dead bodies as payment for Karen the fairyman to carry the soul of the deceased across the river sticks to the underworld. The symbolism that, perhaps unintentional, is eerie. David works madly, wearing an outfit he wore forty years earlier as the thin white Duke. He looks fearful and frightened as he hurriedly scribbles, trying to finish

his work before running out of time. Then he stalks off to a large wardrobe, climbs inside, and slams the door like the lid of a coffin, and then he's gone. It's tempting to interpret all this as a meticulously stage managed goodbye, the dramatic exit befitting the greatest thespian rock and roll has ever known. It's comforting to think that David Bowie knew something about the universe that the rest of us do not, and was able to plot the precise manner of his final bow. But that wouldn't be

entirely accurate. Besides, do you really want to remember him as a man cowed by fate who willingly submitted to the inevitable and went down without a fight, not a chance. As Black Star was ready to release that winter, he was eagerly talking to Donnie mccastling about playing a series of intimate dates at some New York jazz clubs, and he was still plugging away at that second musical. I can't stop it, he emailed a friend. It's coming full

force and I'm just creating and creating and creating. In the last week of his life, he faced times Tony Visconti to tell him he'd recorded demos for five new songs and wanted to get moving on a sequel to Black Star. Immediately, Visconti was thrilled, but then that was the last he heard from him. The tone of David's communications started to change. Old friends and partners began receiving emails that one described as slushy. In his final days, he sent a message to Brian Eno, thank you for

our good times. Brian. He concluded they will never rot. He signed the message Dawn, just to keep it from getting too serious. This was classic David. He ended an email the Bromley schoolmate Jeff McCormick with thank you for being my friend all these years and I miss you lots now f off Amusingly, the last Twitter account that David followed billed itself as belonging to God. Coincidence maybe, or David Bowie was an expert level troll. David loved

to play with expectations. He did it with everything, his music, his performances, his style, and we loved him for it. In the end, he used his own existence to play with us one more time, all in good fun. And it was all so fun, wasn't it. The final images of David released to the public show him dapper as ever in a perfectly tailored suit in Fedora, grinning from ear to ear, laughing in the face of death. May

we all be so fortunate. Our expectations of an ending, learned from repeated story, film, narrative culture, gives us a completely unjustified set of expectations for life, David once said, and he's right. Humans compulsively look for the story arc and ourselves and others. It helps us find meaning and make order. And that's not reality in this case. Take David's music. He's been grappling with his mortality on albums

for years. Any one of those could be held up as a fitting farewell, the zen acceptance of Heathen or the masterful comeback of the Next Day with the nostalgic where are We Now? Black Star is simply where the transmission stopped. The interpretation is on us. David would often say, what people see in my songs is far more interesting than what I actually put into them. The brilliance is

in the ambiguity. Following the release of the Next Day, and David gently chastised cover designer Jonathan Barnbrook for describing his meaning behind the sleeve art. David didn't approve. When you do that, you devalue the end object, he insisted, and you leave it less open for people to understand. Make him wonder. Black Star is the same sort of

cat and mouse game that he lived for. The closest he comes to tipping his hand is on the final track, I Can't Give Everything Away, As the last song on Bowie's last record, it's a fitting epitaph. Viewed one way, it's a plea for privacy after fifty years of giving himself over to the public, an explanation for keeping his illness under wraps. There are some things he simply must

keep to himself. From another perspective, it's a stubborn refusal to abandon his earthly life, his hard won happiness, and all that he'd earned. He loved life, he loved his work. It's hard to give it up and give everything away. And finally, it's a playful tease. I can't tell you everything that would give the game away. Put the clues together and the song features a big one. The harmonica riff is taken from the low track. A new career in a new town, a song that harold it has

moved to Berlin forty years earlier. It's a piece about moving on, starting fresh rebirth. For Bowie, the Buddhist death is the ultimate rebirth as far as clues go. It's a good one. But he can't give everything away. So who was this man? This collection of characters, masks and poses that we've explored over these episodes. Sorry to disappoint, but I don't know any more than you do, and

that's sort of the fun of it. A curator for the David Bowie Is Exhibition admitted that after the multi year project was complete, he still was no closer to figuring out who David Bowie actually was. And I second that sentiment. We want David Bowie to be superhuman, in touch with the cosmos and a master of space and time. It makes a better story, but it is just a story, one that he told so skillfully. But in a way

it obscures an even more amazing point. The fact that he was just a person like you and me actually makes it even more exciting. That means there's hope for us to be great too, no excuses, And yet he wasn't really like us, was he? The Psychics prediction the musical hints the exquisitely timed exit. It's enough to make you think. Was he ordained with all the worldly insights or guidance? Was he an alien mystics sent down to Earth to shake things up? I don't know myself, but

I can tell you a story. It was November of David was filming the Lazarus music video. He knew something that the rest of the cast and crew didn't. A day earlier, he'd been told that his cancer had spread. There was no chance of recovery. The decision was made to stop treatment. He was over. David kept the news to himself, but he still showed up to work. The director suggested that he and the video by disappearing into

the large wardrobe and slamming the door. David thought about it for a second before a big smile lit up his face. When the end came and everything was stripped away, he remained an artist, and what's an artist but an alien mystic? The wardrobe looked unmistakably like a coffin. It was perfect. Yeah, David said, that'll keep them guessing. Off The record is a production of I Heart Radio. The executive producers are Noel Brown and Shan t. Tone. The

supervising producers are Taylor Kogne and Tristan McNeil. The show was researched, written and hosted by me Jordan run Talk and edited, scored and sound designed by Taylor she Coogne and Tristan McNeil, with additional music by Evan tire M. If you like what you heard, please subscribe and leave us a review. For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.