David Bowie's BLACKSTAR

[gveranon]

Apparently "Blackstar" was conceived as the theme song for a new TV series called The Last Panthers:

David Bowie's theme song for The Last Panthers – listen here | Music | The Guardian

[Piranesi]

Quote Originally Posted by qcrisp

Anyway, a reading group called Chaos Reading is doing a Bowie read over at Goodreads, here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show...ds-like-bowie? They include a link to the list of Bowie's 100 favourite books (which I've seen before): http://www.openbooktoronto.com/news/...how_read_bowie.

A few days ago, searching for a specific title by J. G. Ballard, I consulted this list - in vain. I haven't read anything by Ballard and was wondering where to begin when I thought of Bowie. Some of the relics on display at the BOWIE IS exhibition - at least when I visited it in Berlin - was books by Ballard. One of the books was, if memory serves me right - The Crystal World. Anyway, I’m not sure that this list of 100 books gives us much insight into Blackstar. It might provide us keys to the artist, though- keys to the personae known as David Bowie.

[bendk]

David Bowie frequently appears in delusions.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/offbea...-BBojnAg?pfr=1

[qcrisp]

Just an update on something I posted here earlier:

http://thevillaoformen.tumblr.com/po...i-am-not-david

A comment under the following article mentioned the site had been updated, as indeed it has. No real explanation, apart from "I am not David":

http://www.theguardian.com/music/201...rmen?CMP=fb_gu

As the comments under that article attest, there's an attraction to riddles, especially in the wake of a death.

But maybe Bowie wasn't being Sirius. Maybe he was just dancing:

http://www.poemhunter.com/best-poems...-love-to-leah/

[Piranesi]

About halfway through the title track of ★, there’s a shift of narrator. It’s the verse that begins with “Something happened on the day he day died”. But the tempo quickly changes and a new voice seems to break through: “I can’t answer why” followed by the backing vocals singing “I’m a blackstar.” It occurs to me that this part of the song sounds like a sort of antiphon or antiphony:

A: I can’t answer why
B: I’m a blackstar
A: Just go with me
B: I’m not a filmstar
A: Imma take you home
B: I’m a blackstar
A: Take your passport and shoes
B: I’m not a popstar
A: And your sedatives boo
B: I’m a blackstar
A: You’re a flash in the pan
B: I’m not a marvelstar
A: I’m the great I am
B: I’m a blackstar

The reference to Exodus 3:14 makes it obvious to identify the first singer with God. If so, the backing vocals could be man – a mortal. This God has come to take the human “home” for reasons it will or cannot divulge. There’s something malicious about this divinity – not so much because it strips man of identity and even takes away his or hers sedatives, but because it says “boo”. A maliciously jesting god – a gnostic demiurge perhaps? You’re just a brief moment, this god continues, while I – the great I AM – am eternal. And the human responds: Yes, I’m dying, a dying and disintegrating star, I’m neither this nor that: I’m a blackstar and soon I’ll be nothing.

[Masonwire]

Originally there had been two songs which then morphed into this one 10-minute phantasmagoria.
I haven't listened to much besides the album during the last couple of weeks and I think that even without the post death glorification and exegesis "Blackstar" would have become a Bowie-album fit for the "Low"-pantheon.