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Oh my god. I just figured out what the central overarching meaning of the entirety of David Bowie’s life’s work is. All of it. It all fits. And I can’t figure out why I never saw this before.

My god. It all makes sense.

No, I’m not on drugs. No, I wasn’t even trying to figure it out. But since Blackstar came out I’ve been pondering the meaning of the video and lyrics, and especially since Bowie’s death I’ve been re-pondering it over and over, and listening to The Next Day, and other Bowie albums and songs, as well as listening to a radio documentary about him (narrated by Tim Minchin), and Amanda Palmer & Jherek Bischoff’s string quartet tribute, and other things as comfort in the wake of grief, using the music to try to fill up the inexplicable hole that was left in my psyche.*

Tonight I was watching the DVD “Best of Bowie,” which I’ve had for years (got as a fantastic Christmas present) and I usually watch piecemeal. Tonight I tried to watch it chronologically, starting at the beginning, but now I’ve paused to start this essay because the video for “Space Oddity” is the key to the entire thing.

Here it is. Here’s the secret that’s been in front of our eyes all this time:

In all of Bowie’s work, outer space is a metaphor for fame itself.

Maybe a million semiotics and pop culture theses have already been written on this subject: I don’t know. All I know is I never realized it before now, and now that I’ve seen it, I can’t unsee it. And the more songs I analyze the more I realize it fits.

Let’s start at the beginning, or pretty close to it.

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