BlackStar
David Bowie's final album --Blackstar-- is meerly evidence for his schizophrenia, Bowie's ultimately capitulated and sold his soul to the devil; like the evil witch who yearns for eternal beauty or the crumbling Skeksis king from Jim Henson's, The Dark Crystal, who --being without spirit-- is tied to the mortal coil. Bowie denies the reality of death and restlessly tries to escape it, he wants to be Lazarus, to be the white crow --an omen of death wrapped in the inklings of eternity--, laying buttons on his eyes now, he invokes every 'Hail Mary' and yet, superficially, doesn't seem to recognise the futility; he's torn between two realities, the side of the physical world denies the reality his spirit knows. Still, the soul is eternal, Bowie's only sold his soul to the devil, so it's less so eternity he yearns because he knows that everyone's tied to the eternal unmoving, more so it's epicurean liberty he desires --merely satisfactions of the body as his soul's already lost. With the knowledge of eternal entrapment in the lake of souls, Bowie --in his manic dance-- can only kiss the feet of his new lord as a last ditch effort and scrawl his final outlasting essence to the world so that he still may participate in the living world --however divorced he may be. Bowie is the Blackstar, an impossible thing, the entire concept of a star is light, to have a black star is to have no star at all; Bowie's album is itself a false dichotomy, his soul is black and hence the absence of light. Bowie says he's "the great I am" and that he was "born upside down." The former is evidence of his schizophrenic state --being that he believes he is the accomplished Jungian self, he believes he's reached the God-hood which we all move towards--, the latter --in where he begins the verse with "I can't answer why, but I can tell you how"-- is alluding to the transcending nature of choice, e.i. to sell his soul requires his soul to already be sold, in other words, free will is transcendent of the physicality of time. Bowie's neither a "gangster" nor a "pornstar," he is eternally dammed by his own will, he has become sin rather than a person who sins. Very simply, he isn't 'accepting death' he isn't 'brave' he's facing consequences --and like anything of the material world when they experience the most physically desperate moment of their lives, he squirms.
P.S.
How are people not getting this obvious interpretation? Literally, every interpretation of this album has been something to the effect of "Oh wow I can't believe he knew he was dying and still managed to use that energy to write an entire album, how brave." It's like, you're an idiot, everyone knows that, ever since Robert Johnson, musicians and entertainers have sold their souls in one capacity or another, and at the very top are those who pay the toll as an entry fee. Not to mention the frequent and unending occult imagery in the albums videos and encoded in the lyrics; the album's namesake is an obvious inversion of divine imagery and a nod to esotericism.