Blackstar - David Bowie - My Interpretations

What an incredible piece of music with such sound and vision. We can read this and
interpret this in so many ways. While the song was written based on a tv show for
British Tv, "The Last Panthers", the actual video speaks of so much more. The video
that David Bowie and his Director Johan Renck collaborated on, rather I am sure
this was a vision of mostly Bowie's, he worked so well with Renck. The result was
nothing less than stunning and eeiry for a look back into the life of Bowie.

Here is an interpretation that I personally came up with, though many
interpretations will vary. Some people are already speculating on social media.

Here is mine: In a poetic open form.

We open to see a desolate land, an astronauts body first assumption, it has tape
on the thumb, and on the foot, someone was in need of repair, fixing, what was
holding it together, who was this man?
It pans back we see the happy face
on his chest, the man was once happy so happy that he wore a happy face upon his body
perhaps upon his heart.

As the camera pans back we see a bigger picture. one lonely man in the middle of a
seemingly dead planet, a star a black star,  a sun in eclipse, a darkness over the sun
in someones heart, a looming presence of nothing to come.

The lyrics at this point - in the distance, we know this not until it is revealed moments away as the song progresses.
Lyrics say
In the villa of Ormen, in the villa of Ormen
Stands a solitary candle, ah-ah, ah-ah
In the centre of it all, in the centre of it all
Your eyes
reference
the candle was burning once but alone, and then at the center of it all..
Your Eyes..
The burning candle
the man now gone was once the center of it all, and
we saw it with OUR eyes..
Your eyes, the soul in which we see out of
and through and with.

A woman appears she is moving on the screen,
lyrics say
On the day of execution
only women kneel and smile. 
sung by a man in distress (bowie) with jewels for eyes in a
blindfold with a variety of people faded in the background  are they the group, a band?

The day of execution could be a day of realization that life is going going gone,
and when it is gone
 those that worshiped you most
were the women, they were in awe
and he was beloved by them, indicated by worshiping by kneeling.

The woman moves toward the man, astronaut, body, as the lyrics say at the center of
it all. There he was once the center of it all. As we watched with our eyes.
The woman has a tail.. she is a fantasy? or alien? something not real but an image that
the figure is female at least.
Bowie singing his hands start to quiver as she approaches the body.. his hands are shaking,
indication is he old is he becoming frail is he in fear of being old?


She stoops and beholds someone, she is so fond of
in her eyes you see,
a cut to the candle, which is alone and burning,
he is still alive in her heart.
As she slides the visor up,
she is not horrified by what she sees, a skeleton of a man,
another indication of being older and so frail that he is just skeleton and bones, and
dead.
But he was someone he was great, he is covered with jewels.
In ancient customs many who were kings and queens were buried with jewels.
This man this astronaut was famous and a king, and is given the respect of jewels in his slumber.
Major Tom..

A cut to the people the band, the group, shaking an one woman in the background shaking and shaking
are they scared are they frightened of what is to come? Are they cold? of death?
While it is said this part comes from a Popeye cartoon idea, there was a reason it fit in, I
feel it is the indication of the fear we feel upon learning about degrading life.

Cut to the woman carrying the skeleton head in a idealistic fashion placed in a
glass box. Bowie use to mime being in a glass box.
This man this skeleton is him he is growing old and he feels alone in the world still
idolized for his past talent, put inside the glass box for our eyes to revel,
Your Eyes. Imagery shaking men and
moving down into a city desolate and her tail as if it was a comet following her.

But in the distance a city seems to have a center of sorts a castle, above.
A path
a Labyrinth?
Will she take him there? As a cut seen comes,  the candle with its wax melting
and the shaking its shaking but the candle its wax flowing down,
burning away, where it burned a very long time with the amount of wax it has below
it.
Life has its long wax candles of events that remain with us, around us,
as candle wax, while are flame is still lit and burns.

The image of women gathering and they shake, as the sky fills with an image of a
skeleton floating up unto the black star.
We are loosing Major Tom, ground control.
He is floating away from us, he knows, it the eyes, they know it and they shake they are
afraid to let him go.

The ritual begins, the women circle, in the circle of life .. we see the true Bowie
himself looking up holding the black star.
The star that perhaps guided him through his life journey,
head up unafraid of what is coming, as it is in the book in, the book of life, we live we die.
As the people watch, the shakers. A soft humming of the song as the camera turns we see wind blowing plants, plants are life they give air to life.
He holds the book out as if his journey was a path between his eyes and the black star book of life.

Bowie hands folded together in a house one round window, and a pyramid triangle roof.
Lyrics
Something happened on the day he died
Spirit rose a metre and stepped aside
Somebody else took his place, and bravely cried
There would always be another idol to fill a spot as time goes.

Lyrics are sung different tempo, in Bowie story style, in this part he speaks to us about what he was
and that the black star .. black to me indicates the dead darkness and the star is
the bright shining idol he was.
Lyric,
How many times does an angel fall?
How many people lie instead of talking tall?
He trod on sacred ground, he cried loud into the crowd
(I’m a blackstar, I’m a blackstar, I’m not a gangster)

How many times does an angel fall.. reference the many changes he has gone through
his styles in and out falling into one genre to another and then dealing with the
music industry and the weaving of lies and not being upstanding to the musician of the world.
being exploited in all the manners that he and many endured, he trod on sacred ground
yet he continued on and cried loud into the crowd.. on stage on tours.I cant answer why,
Bowie is the star going out, and his tempo and cuts change into a familiar sound of him, his style his prance, just go with me he beckons, ima take you home, going with him, ...take your
passport n shoes and shoes were always so big in his early years platforms of glitter, .. and
your sedatives, the pills we need when we get old, your flash in the pan,
our days of once being the glitter and glam of an era gone by, indicated by his thumbing his
nose to those days in an ill fashion, and I am the great I am.
His ego knew he was great. A king.

I’m a blackstar, way up, oh honey, I’ve got game
I see right so white, so open-heart it’s pain
I want eagles in my daydreams, diamonds in my eyes 
Diamonds in his eyes. The jewels again and the diamond dog of past,repeat, and new image of crucifying or scarecrows undulating hips swaying just as he did on stage,
lyrics
Something happened on the day he died
Spirit rose a metre and stepped aside
Somebody else took his place, and bravely cried
(I’m a blackstar, I’m a star star, I’m a blackstar)
indicating the struggle between letting him become past and remaining the star star
he is still.

Lyrics,
I can’t answer why (I’m not a gangster)
But I can tell you how 
I’m not a flam(could be film?) star
lyrics..
We were born upside-down (I’m a star star)
Born the wrong way ‘round (I’m not a white star)
(I’m a blackstar, I’m not a gangster
I’m a blackstar, I’m a blackstar
I’m not a pornstar, I’m not a wandering star
I’m a blackstar, I’m a blackstar)
And the hip rolling scarecrows dance upon their sticks,

a cut scene to the women .. your eyes
one with the skeleton head as she walks through the women
with him his head of jewels.. they bow in reverence, and respect, she holds
the skelly head forward for all to see,
they shake in fear of loss of loosing in the dance of the dead.
shaking.

On the day of execution, .... your eyes
images of woman in artistic dance with her hands and an image
of a face of a darker race in background ? a love? is it Iman(it isnt Iman maybe representing)? onlooking?
one woman kneels then rises and the others spin and hands raise with a fist, indicating
defiance or victory, death has had a victory or we defy the passing.

They bow and then the candle is alone then the shaking of a scarecrows.
 A ritual
of passing of Change .. ch ch ch changes... a ritual of change..
the darker lady circles in the ritual
with his jeweled skelly head.. as we hear the wooooooooos oooooooo.
A deep mourning  of.. woahs.

A brief glimpse of Bowie onlooking the ritual as the head is placed upon the woman's
back.
Have women carried this man throughout his life, with out them he may not have made it,  but at the last rite,
he is placed upon her back as an idol
his mind given a resting place.

And as it ends, the images of the pain of being crucified,
the shaking and passing and
growing old and into the ground falling ..
until gone.. pan in the empty city..
with the castle on the hill. the Labyrinth city.

Preorder Blackstar at Amazon


Article on Rolling Stone.
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/david-bowie-plays-doomed-blind-prophet-in-haunting-blackstar-video-20151119