Re David Bowie’s “Lazarus,” from his brilliant final album, Blackstar, the New York Times has this to say: “The song is a man in total distress, and then finding a way out, in his imagination, so he could still be alive, in freedom, as a bluebird. It’s the message of the whole show.”
Here’s a question. Could Bowie have known Charles Bukowski’s famous poem “Bluebird”? Probably? Listen to this brilliant reading of Bukowski’s short poem by “Tom O’Bedlam” on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVdpfhsj6uI
Bukowski’s earlier poem heads in some different directions from Bowie, exploring what macho male identity tries to kill or hide. But both CB and DB use the bluebird to signify the beautiful and the immortal in us–