Handwritten Davie Bowie lyrics are set to go under the hammer at auction and could net a cool £40,000. Starman was released in 1972 and appeared on Bowie's famous concept record The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.
The lyrics talk about the eponymous Starman who would “like to come and meet us but he thinks he’d blow our minds”. The lyrics were formerly on display in the V&A Museum’s David Bowie Is collection, and they have been owned by the same person since the 1980s.
The A4 page features handwritten amendments and edits by Bowie, including corrected spelling mistakes and additions. Dan Hampson, auction manager for Omega Auctions, said: “David Bowie remains one of the most influential recording artists of all time and someone whose lasting influence on music is still being studied.
"The items that most excite our collectors are those that bring them closer to the stars, in this instance the handwritten lyrics to a song which many would regard as a work of true genius. It’s a real privilege to see and to sell them.”
The lyrics will be sold as part of a David Bowie and glam rock sale on September 27. In 2019, the first demo of Bowie singing Starman sold for £51,000 after gathering dust in a loft for nearly five decades.
Bowie can be heard telling his guitarist Mick Ronson, who died in 1993, that he has not finished singing the song when he tries to end the demo. The singer, born David Jones in post-war Brixton, died aged 69 on January 10, 2016.
