In 1976 a movie came out called The Man Who Fell to Earth. The sci-fi pic starred one David Bowie as a humanoid. Dial forward almost 50 years and Irish playwright Enda Walsh (musical adaptation of the film Once) wrote a musical based on the film called Lazarus. He was able to engage David Bowie. A Bowie who knew his days were numbered and still spent some of his finite amount of time writing the music for it. Some of the music was already penned like the title song “Lazarus” which was part of his final album, Blackstar and older songs like “Changes”, “Life on Mars”, “Absolute Beginners” and “Heroes”. While they are well done and it is interesting to hear a new twist on these tried and true tunes, the real pull here is the trio of new Bowie songs. “Killing a Little Time”, “When I Met You” and “No Plan” are all haunting with the last track really twisting the knife into your heart. Each shows a different side to the artist with “Killing a Little Time” being a vocally angry Bowie surrounded by an industrial sound. “When I Met You” is a guitar laden pop song and “No Plan”, the best of the lot, a pure torch song. What ties a black bow around everything is that the Lazarus cast part of the recording was done the day after Bowie died. Understandable that that sorrow makes its way into their vocals as they sing the man’s songs.
Various Artists – Lazarus
