Last month we got the chills-inducing music video to the title track off David Bowie's upcoming release, Black Star , and now he's treating fans to the Off-Broadway cross-over track "Lazarus," which the musical's cast will perform tonight on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert .
Bowie teased the song earlier this week and now the whole eerie six-minute track is available for all to hear, perfectly timed ahead of the cast's appearance on Colbert. This is the only track that overlaps between the off-Broadway musical and the album.
The song is a layered pit of desperation as Bowie recalls his Berlin era, according to Stereogum. A bleak bass line drives the rhythm with spurts of deflated trumpets interjecting a squeal into the song, like a call for help. Distorted guitar softly but poignantly cuts into the empty space between the lyrics as the song builds all around Bowie, eventually devolving into a noir-style saxophone solo. Obviously, the song was made for the musical, so it's going to be very visual, but you don't need the actors or the lyrics to feel the story behind the music.
"Look up here, I'm in heaven," Bowie sings opening up the dialogue of the song. "I've got scars that can't be seen/ I've got drama, can't be stolen/ everybody knows me know."
That kind of dogmatic talk was also used on "Black Star," in which Bowie's truly freaky music video depicts a cultish group worshiping the skull of a dead astronaut while shaking uncontrollably. The audio video for "Lazarus" opens with the announcement that the full music video will be released Jan. 7, the day before the album's official release.
Listen to the new song below.
