#76 - David Bowie - Lazarus
David Bowie's "Lazarus" from Blackstar - how the Thin White Duke created his haunting final farewell, recorded with Donny McCaslin's jazz quartet in New York's Magic Shop studios while battling termin
There are songs that capture a moment, and then there are songs that become the moment. "Lazarus" is the latter. When David Bowie's final music video dropped on January 7, 2016 — three days before his death — the world didn't yet know they were witnessing a carefully orchestrated goodbye. But the opening lines said everything: "Look up here, I'm in heaven / I've got scars that can't be seen."
Producer Tony Visconti knew immediately what Bowie was doing. "When I read the lyrics to 'Lazarus' and a few other songs, I knew what he was doing," he later revealed. "I think it was clear in his mind that this could be his last album. He was putting all those messages in there. Like that first verse of 'Lazarus' – 'Look up here, I'm in heaven'. I heard that and I smiled. 'I know what you're saying David,' and he laughed."
That's the thing about Bowie — even facing mortality, he found a way to make it art.
The Night Everything Changed
Picture this: November 2015, a Brooklyn studio. Director Johan Renck is setting up shots for what he thinks will be a straightforward performance video. Bowie had told him, "I just want to make it a simple performance video." But Renck, knowing the song's title, had other ideas. "I immediately said 'the song is called Lazarus, you should be in the bed'. To me it had to do with the biblical aspect of it… it had nothing to do with him being ill."
The cruel irony? During that very week of filming, Bowie received devastating news. As Renck later learned: "The week we were shooting, it was when he was told it was over, they were ending treatments and that his illness had won."
So there was Bowie, lying in a hospital bed with buttons sewn over his eyes, singing about being in heaven, while processing the news that his 18-month battle with cancer was entering its final phase. Yet he continued filming, turning his darkest moment into his most powerful artistic statement. The man who'd spent decades shape-shifting through personas was now confronting the ultimate transformation — and documenting it for the world.
The Jazz Revolution That Made It Possible
What makes "Lazarus" so haunting isn't just its prophetic lyrics — it's the way Bowie found the perfect musical collaborators for his swan song. In spring 2014, he'd walked into 55 Bar, a 96-year-old jazz joint in New York's West Village, to catch saxophonist Donny McCaslin's quartet. He sat quietly near the stage, took in their exploratory jazz set, and left without a word.
Ten days later, McCaslin got an email that changed everything: Bowie wanted him for the studio. "I thought, 'This is David Bowie, and he chose me, and he's sending me an email?'" McCaslin recalls.
The choice was genius. McCaslin's band — featuring Mark Guiliana on drums, Jason Lindner on keyboards, and Tim Lefebvre on bass — brought exactly what Bowie needed for Blackstar. As producer Tony Visconti explained: "If we'd used [Bowie's] former musicians they would be rock people playing jazz... Having jazz guys play rock music turns it upside down."
For "Lazarus," recorded at the legendary Magic Shop studio in January 2015, Bowie gave the band complete creative freedom. "He gave us the freedom to really just play, sort of be ourselves, and if we were hearing anything in particular, to try it out," Lindner told Rolling Stone. The result was something that couldn't be categorized — part jazz ballad, part art rock meditation, part funeral dirge.
The Biblical Weight of a Title
The choice of "Lazarus" as a title carries layers of meaning that become more profound knowing Bowie's condition. In the Bible, Lazarus is the man Jesus brings back from the dead after four days in the tomb. For someone who'd been in cancer remission and faced his mortality, the metaphor was perfect — he'd experienced his own resurrection, only to face the reality that this time, there might not be another one.
But there's another layer: Bowie's prediction about his own legacy. As one critic noted, "The song's reference to Lazarus has been interpreted as referring to Bowie's prediction of increased fame following his death." He understood that death might be the ultimate career move — not in a cynical way, but in recognition that artists often achieve their greatest cultural impact posthumously.
The song also served as the centerpiece of his off-Broadway musical of the same name, which premiered in December 2015. It was Bowie's final public appearance, attending that premiere just a month before his death. The musical allowed him to explore themes of mortality and resurrection through multiple art forms — typical Bowie, refusing to be contained by a single medium even at the end.
Recording a Farewell
What's remarkable about the Blackstar sessions is how normal they seemed to everyone involved. The jazz quartet had no idea Bowie was sick. They worked "essentially from 11 to 4 every day," McCaslin remembered. Lefebvre was more direct: "It never looked to us like he was sick."
That's pure Bowie — maintaining his artistic mystique even while fighting for his life. When saxophonist McCaslin played on "Lazarus," he approached it purely musically: "I'm not a lyric person anyway, I react to feelings. As we recorded Lazarus and David was singing on the other side of the clear glass from me, I closed my eyes and tried to imagine the sax being a pillow around him."
The intimacy of that image — the saxophone as a pillow, comforting a dying man — captures something essential about the song. It's tender and devastating, a musical embrace for someone saying goodbye.
The Video That Completed the Circle
When that "Lazarus" video hit on January 7, 2016, it felt like a revelation. Bowie in the hospital bed, bandaged eyes with buttons sewn on, writing furiously at a desk, then retreating into a dark wardrobe. The 1:1 aspect ratio made it feel claustrophobic, intimate. He's wearing a striped suit that callbacks to his 1976 Station to Station era — specifically the back cover where he's drawing the kabbalistic Tree of Life.
Everything connected. The wardrobe as coffin. The frantic writing as final testimony. The bandaged eyes as both blindness and insight. Director Renck had unknowingly created the perfect visual metaphor for an artist transitioning between worlds.
The video was nominated for three MTV Video Music Awards, but by then, Bowie was gone. Released on his 69th birthday, Blackstar had exactly two days to exist in a world with its creator before becoming an instant legend.
Why It Endures
"Lazarus" became Bowie's first top 40 hit in more than 28 years, reaching #40 in the week after his death. But chart positions don't capture its real impact. This is a song about facing the end with grace, about turning personal tragedy into universal art.
Musicians frequently write about death, but few have done so as directly or deliberately as Bowie did on "Lazarus." He didn't just write about mortality — he choreographed his own artistic death and resurrection, leaving behind a roadmap for how to say goodbye on your own terms.
When you listen to "Lazarus" now, you're not just hearing a song — you're witnessing one of the most profound artistic statements about mortality ever recorded. It's Bowie's final magic trick: transforming the most human experience into something transcendent.
Notes About "Lazarus" by David Bowie
Release Date: December 17, 2015 (single), January 8, 2016 (album)
Duration: 6:21 (album version), 4:08 (video edit)
Genre: Art Rock / Experimental Jazz / Alternative Rock
Album: ★ (Blackstar) (26th and final studio album)
Producer: David Bowie, Tony Visconti
Recording Studio: Magic Shop, New York City
Label: ISO / Columbia Records / Sony Music
Chart Performance: #40 US Billboard Hot 100 (posthumously)
David Bowie "Lazarus" Era Band Details
Album Details
Album: ★ (Blackstar)
Release Date: January 8, 2016 (Bowie's 69th birthday)
Label: ISO / Columbia Records / Sony Music
Producers: David Bowie, Tony Visconti
Recording Approach: Live vocals with jazz quartet, recorded in secret
Commercial Performance: #1 UK Albums Chart, #1 US Billboard 200 (Bowie's only US #1)
The Blackstar Jazz Quartet
David Bowie - Vocals, Guitar, Producer
Donny McCaslin - Tenor Saxophone
Jason Lindner - Keyboards, Piano
Tim Lefebvre - Bass Guitar
Mark Guiliana - Drums, Percussion
Ben Monder - Additional Guitar (select sessions)
James Murphy - Additional Percussion (LCD Soundsystem)
Production Team
Tony Visconti - Co-producer, Longtime Collaborator
Joe Visciano - Engineer (Human Worldwide Studios)
Tom Elmhirst - Mixing
Ray Staff - Mastering
Video Production
Johan Renck - Director
Filming Location: Studio in Brooklyn, New York
Filming Date: November 2015
Release Date: January 7, 2016 (three days before Bowie's death)
Interesting Facts About "Lazarus"
The Week That Changed Everything
The tragic timing of the "Lazarus" video shoot cannot be overstated. Director Johan Renck later revealed that during the very week they were filming Bowie in a hospital bed, singing about being in heaven, the artist received news that his cancer treatments were being discontinued. The video wasn't meant to be prophetic — it became prophetic. As Renck put it: "I found out later that, the week we were shooting, it was when he was told it was over." The haunting imagery of Bowie bandaged and bedridden took on devastating new meaning when the world learned of his condition just weeks later.
The Musical That Tied It All Together
"Lazarus" wasn't just a song — it was the centerpiece of Bowie's off-Broadway musical of the same name, which premiered in December 2015. The production was Bowie's final public appearance, marking the completion of a decades-long dream to create a stage musical. The cast recorded their own versions of the song after Bowie's death, with the emotional weight of their loss palpable in every note. Michael C. Hall, who starred in the musical, performed "Lazarus" on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on the very day the single was released, creating a surreal moment where the song existed simultaneously as promotion for a living artist and memorial for a dying one.