Music Bowie was secretly writing a musical about 18th century London before he died

David Bowie He secretly began working in a musical set in the 18th century London in the months preceding his death in 2016, according to new notes found in his office in New York.

According to BBCthe project had the provisional title The Spectatorand not even the closest employees of Bowie They knew the existence of work until the notes were discovered. The documents were donated to Victoria and Albert Museumin London, who acquired the rest of the vast file of Bowie in 2023.

Bowie began to sketch the story and think of possible characters to The Spectatorwhich seemed to mix facts and fiction. He considered to make the thief and fugitive folk-hero “Honest Jack” Sheppard one of the main characters, along with Jonathan Wildprominent figure of the London criminal underworld, responsible for arresting and condemning Sheppard to death.

One of the greatest inspirations of Bowie seems to have been the journal also called The Spectatorpublished between 1711 and 1712. Bowie He kept an entire notebook dedicated to publication, in which he wrote down key stories and even rated them on a scale of 1 to 10. Some he considered for possible subplots, as a moral narrative about a beautiful but “vain and severe” woman, whose intended but pleasant sister.

Other notes refer to Gordon disorders -a revolt in 1780 driven by the anti-Catholic feeling-and to Moooksa violent gang of young people from high society who were drunk and attacked people. For a more extreme scene, he imagined a public execution, followed by “surgeons fighting on corpses.”

Notes suggest that Bowie She was attracted to the 18th century London because the scenario would allow us to explore topics such as crime and punishment, the development of art and satire, and the ever -fascinating intersection between classical and popular culture.

“London had so many different juxtapositions. Judge between the top and the bass, between the virtuous and the criminal, and these things existed side by side,” said the professor Bob HarrisSpecialist in 18th Century of Oxford University. “I think there was so much that it enchanted the contemporaries, but also clearly something that Bowie He found himself fascinating. “

Bowie It also showed interest in making his musical comment on his own genre and its development during the eighteenth century. Madeleine Haddoncurator of V&Ahe stressed that, at that time, “musicals were used for political satire” and said about Bowie: “It looks like he was wondering, ‘What is the role of artists in this period? How do artists create a type of satirical comment?’

In this sense, it also observes the possible relevance of Bowie Being working on a project like this in the United States in 2015, considering the country’s political situation at that time. Would he be reflecting on this: the power of art forms to generate change within our own political context?

The notes of Bowie to The Spectator They would have been trapped to the wall of his office in New York. But, as only he and his personal assistant had the room key, the files were only discovered when the archivists began to catalog all their belongings. The notes can be seen when the David Bowie Center open V&A East Storehousein London, on September 13th.

To Bowiethe decision to dedicate his creative energy to a musical in the last months of his life seems to have been a very appropriate choice. In an interview with BBC Radio 4in 2002, Bowie he said:

From the beginning, I really wanted to write to the theater. And I think I could have just written for the theater in my living room, but I think the intention was always to have a considerable audience.

Although he never came to realize The Spectator, Bowie completed another musical before his death: Lazaruswhich debuted Off-Broadway in November 2015. The show included songs from the entire career of Bowieincluding some tracks from your celebrated last album, Blackstar.

This article was originally published by Rolling Stone USA by Jon Blistein on September 5, 2025, and can be checked here.

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