The whole world mourned singer songwriter and actor David Bowie, he passed away back in January 10, 2016. But the artist had a surprise in store for his fans: his final recordings are going to be released for his fans. The EP titled No Plan was released on January 8 on what would have been Bowie's 70th birthday.
Back in 2015, as David Bowie was recording music for his 25th album, Blackstar, the artist also recorded a handful of songs for his musical Lazarus. That year he found out that his liver cancer was terminal. Despite his deteriorated health, as late as a week before his death, he continued to record his final album. Unfortunately, two days after his 60th birthday on January 10, Bowie passed away. The Lazarus tracks, including the title track and three others, became his final recordings.
These recordings have been compiled into the No Plan EP. The album was released on what would have been Bowie's 70th birthday. The EP includes the tracks Lazarus, No Plan, Killing a Little Time and When I Met You.
The themes of time, future, and death are present on the tracks which proves that Bowie's disease affected his songwriting and he was considering his own mortality.
As an artist that lived through creativity, it seems natural that Bowie would contemplate his death in the same way, which is through music. Although the themes are sad, they are also inspired. These songs resemble any masterpiece delving into the artist's inner self.
The album was released together with a new music video for No Plan, showing TVs in a window on a rainy street. Crowds of mourners gather to watch the screens as it shows the lyrics and old images of Bowie. The moment reminiscence in the day when the world stopped at the news of Bowie's death on January 11. The television sets are placed in a store called Newtown Electrical which is said to be a reference to Jerome Newton, which is the character played by Bowie in the film The Man Who Fell to Earth.
Before the release of the EP and the video, Bowie's wife of 23 years, Iman, shared a moving hand-drawn image of the singer as a young boy to Instagram. The image shows a boy with Bowie's trademark red and blue lighting bolt drawn across his face.
In a new BBC2 documentary the director of the singer's Lazarus music video, Johan Renck says Bowie wasn't aware that his cancer was terminal until three months before his death.