Divine Symmetry I 18 I Madonna’s Lucky Star (1983) v. Bowie’s “Star” Songs

With the release of Let’s Dance, David Bowie was at the height of his pop-stardom in 1983. That’s the same year as the release of Madonna’s self-titled debut album, which opened with a song that made use of one of Bowie’s old tricks, “Lucky Star.”

“Star” must have been Bowie’s favorite musical word. There’s “The Prettiest Star (1970); “Star,” “Lady Stardust;” “Ziggy Stardust” and “Starman” (all from 1972); “Shining Star (Makin’ My Love)” (1987); “New Killer Star” (2003); “The Stars Are Out Tonight” (2013) and “Blackstar” (2016). Bowie seemed to like the word’s multiple meanings. This is, perhaps most obvious with “The Stars Are Out Tonight,” where he evokes the celestial bodies in a song that’s really about celebrities.

Madonna does something similar with her song. Her “star” metaphor is very much comparing a lover with one of the twinkly objects in the night sky, but she uses the opportunity for a double entendre: “shine your heavenly body tonight.” The whole song employees metaphors— her star shines on her, makes the darkness seem so far, guides her and makes her glow.

Other than the refrain, Bowie doesn’t work much with star metaphors in, “The Prettiest Star,” but he counts on the word’s multiple meaning to tie together the Ziggy Album. It isn’t coincidence that “Star” uses the word to mean famous person, whereas “Starman” ostensibly is about an alien. “Ziggy Stardust” wraps both meanings together.

“Shining Star (Makin’ My Love)” is a bit of an embarrassment. While Madonna acknowledges Bowie as one of her influences, I’m not sure she had him in mind with “Lucky Star.” But Bowie very much might have had Madonna on the mind with his suspiciously similarly named 1987 song, released on Never Let Me Down, an album that also contained a lyrical nod to Prince. Bowie as pop star (there’s that word again) had been spiraling, while Bowie the artist was seeing others fill the space he once occupied. His next album was the first Tin Machine, which included the song, “Pretty Thing,” that mentioned Madonna by name.

“Pretty Thing” contains references to Bowie’s past work, including, obviously, “Oh! You Pretty Things.” But Bowie had become jaded and his vision of hedonistic debauchery had taken a turn for the worse. After pledging never to treat the object of his desire wrong, the song’s narrator proposes to tie her down while pretending she’s Madonna. Bowie had gone from referencing Twiggy on one album, only to appear with her on the cover of his next album, to pretending his lover (or victim) was Madonna.

“Stars” stayed out of Bowie’s lyrics for a while before he once again employed wordplay with, “New Killer Star”— it’s supposed to be pronounced, “Nuclear Star.”

“Blackstar” serves, in effect, as Bowie’s exit music. After iterating all the types of stars he isn’t, rolling through multiple meanings, he makes up a new one— black star I take to mean, dead star.

Madonna, too, returned to the “star” theme with, “Little Star” off Ray of Light (1998), and once again her person-star is “shining brighter than all the stars in the sky.”

Use of the word “star” in this way is somewhat obvious. Madonna was not referencing Bowie or directly influenced by him in either case. But she was influenced by Bowie. Upon his death she wrote,

“I never felt like I fit in growing up in Michigan. Like an oddball or a freak. I went to see him in concert at Cobo Arena in Detroit…I already had many of his records and was so inspired by the way he played with gender confusion. Was both masculine and feminine. Funny and serious. Clever and wise. His lyrics were witty ironic and mysterious…I saw how he created a persona and used different art forms within the arena of rock and roll to create entertainment…I found him so inspiring and innovative. Unique and provocative. A real genius.”

In other words, David Bowie showed Madonna how to be a star…

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The Divine Symmetry series compares Bowie songs to other songs with some sort of similarity, intentional or otherwise. The term is borrowed from Bowie’s song, “Quicksand.”