David Bowie didn't just die; he turned his exit into a piece of performance art so dense we’re still picking through the debris a decade later. When the Blackstar music video dropped in late 2015, we all saw the bandaged eyes and the twitching movements and thought, "Classic Bowie, just being weird." Then he died two days after the album came out. Suddenly, every line in the lyrics Blackstar David Bowie penned felt like a coded obituary.
But here’s the thing: a lot of what people "know" about these lyrics is actually fan-theory-turned-fact. Was it a planned goodbye? Sorta. Was it a literal map of his cancer? Not exactly.
To understand what’s actually happening in that ten-minute epic, you have to look past the "farewell gift" narrative and see the messy, occult-obsessed, jazz-loving man who was still trying to outrun his own shadow.
The Villa of Ormen and the Occult Rabbit Hole
The song starts in the "Villa of Ormen." If you google it, you won't find it on a map. People have spent years trying to figure out if it's a real place. Some say it's a village in Norway. Others point out that "Ormen" is Norwegian for "serpent."
Honestly, knowing Bowie’s history with Aleister Crowley and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, it’s probably a symbolic headspace. It's a "snake house." It’s where the "solitary candle" stands. In the occult, a candle in the center of a ritual represents the light of consciousness or the "spirit" trying to stay lit while the body fails.
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Bowie was obsessed with Gnosticism. That's not a secret. The "blind" character with buttons for eyes (often called "Button Eyes") isn't just a sick man; he’s a Gnostic figure. He’s someone who has lost physical sight but gained a "third eye" perspective. He's looking at the "day of execution" not with fear, but as a transition.
"I'm a Blackstar": The Multi-Layered Meaning
The biggest misconception is that "Blackstar" refers to only one thing. It doesn't. Bowie loved "polysemy"—that's a fancy way of saying he liked words with five different meanings at once.
- The Medical Term: Some fans point out that "black star" is a term used by radiologists for certain types of cancer lesions. It’s a haunting coincidence, but Bowie’s team has remained vague on whether he knew that specific term.
- The Elvis Connection: This is the big one. Bowie was a massive Elvis fan (they shared a birthday). Elvis had a lesser-known song called "Black Star" about a man who sees his "black star" and knows it's time to go. For a guy who spent his life playing with the concept of "stardom," this was the ultimate full circle.
- The Astronomical Event: A black star is a transitional state—a gravitational object that hasn't quite become a black hole yet. It’s "stardust" turning into a void.
He spends a good chunk of the track listing all the things he isn't. "I'm not a gangster, I'm not a filmstar, I'm not a popstar." He’s stripping away the masks of Ziggy Stardust, Aladdin Sane, and the Thin White Duke. By the time he gets to "I'm a Blackstar," he's telling us he's become something else entirely. Something singular.
Did He Know He Was Dying While Writing?
This is where the timeline gets trippy. Tony Visconti, Bowie’s longtime producer, famously called the album a "parting gift." But the BBC documentary The Last Five Years threw a wrench in that. It revealed that Bowie only found out his cancer was terminal about three months before he died—well after most of the album was written and the "Blackstar" video was being planned.
Does that mean the lyrics Blackstar David Bowie wrote weren't about death?
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Not quite.
He knew he was sick. He was in and out of treatment. But he was also in remission for a while. The lyrics aren't a suicide note; they’re the work of a man who was "living in the shadow of the end" without knowing exactly when the lights would go out. It makes lines like "Something happened on the day he died / Spirit rose a metre and stepped aside" feel less like a prophecy and more like a guy checking his watch, wondering if it's almost time.
The "Isis" Mystery
Here’s a detail that gets missed. Donny McCaslin, the saxophonist who led the jazz quartet on the album, mentioned in an interview with The Guardian that Bowie told him the song was about "Isis."
Immediately, people jumped to the Islamic State. And yeah, Bowie was always interested in global chaos. But knowing his library, he was almost certainly talking about the Egyptian goddess Isis. She’s the one who pieced together her dead husband Osiris. She’s the queen of the afterlife and rebirth.
When he sings about "taking your passport and shoes," he’s talking about the ultimate travel. You can’t take your identity (passport) or your physical connection to the earth (shoes) where he’s going. It’s a terminal boarding call.
Why We Keep Coming Back to the Lyrics
The song is split into two halves. The first is dark, ritualistic, and heavy. Then, suddenly, at about the 4:40 mark, the clouds part. The music shifts into this soaring, almost beautiful jazz-soul melody.
"I can't answer why... but I can take you home."
It’s the most human moment in the whole discography. He’s admitting he doesn't have the answers. For a guy who spent decades playing aliens and prophets, that's huge. He’s just a man, holding a candle, offering to walk us to the door.
The lyrics Blackstar David Bowie left behind aren't just a puzzle to be solved. They’re a mood. They’re the sound of a genius tidying up his room before leaving for a long trip. He gave us enough clues to keep us busy for decades, but he kept the master key for himself.
What to do with this information
If you want to really "get" the song, stop looking for a single answer. Bowie’s art was always a mirror—what you see in the "Villa of Ormen" says more about you than it does about him.
- Listen to the 1960 Elvis track "Black Star." The lyrical parallels are too strong to be a coincidence and provide a much better "vibe" for what Bowie was feeling than any medical textbook.
- Watch the "Lazarus" video again. Notice that while "Blackstar" is about the myth, "Lazarus" is about the man. The two songs are two sides of the same coin.
- Don't over-analyze the "cancer" angle. It’s there, but focusing only on the illness misses the "magic" Bowie was trying to perform. He wanted to be remembered as a star, not a patient.
The best way to honor the work is to let it remain a bit of a mystery. He didn't give everything away, and that's exactly how he wanted it.