Yesterday David Bowie released “Lazarus,” the second single off his forthcoming album ★ (pronounced Blackstar). The song is delivered from the perspective of Thomas Jerome Newton, the alien protagonist of Walter Tevis’ 1963 sci-fi novel The Man Who Fell to Earth.
Didn’t catch the connection in the lyrics? Well, it turns out that “Lazarus” was written for Ivo Hove’s new off-Broadway play of the same name. The musical follows Newton (played by Michael C. Hall) as he wanders Earth as an immortal drunkard tormented by a past love.
The musical is a sequel to the novel, which was later turned into a movie starring—you guessed it—David Bowie. In the 1976 film, Bowie plays Thomas Newton, the neon orange-haired extraterrestrial who crash-lands on Earth in search of water to bring back to his planet.
But there’s a biblical layer to Bowie’s new single, too. Lazarus is also the name of a character in the Gospel of John. Four days after Lazarus’ death, Jesus revives him. The narrative of Bowie’s song follows the alien from Heaven back down to Earth—like Lazarus in The Bible, Thomas Newton cannot die.
