The Concept of David Bowie’s‘Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars’ Explained

David Bowie was a chameleon throughout his career, particularly through the 1970s, when he tried on a number of different personas. Among the most famous was Ziggy Stardust, but Ziggy was more than just a character Bowie played onstage—he was a crucial part of a larger story.

The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars

When Bowie went into the studio in 1971 to record his fifth album, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, he didn’t intend for it to be a concept album. The loose plot about rock-star alien Ziggy was pieced together after most of the album had been recorded. Opening track “Five Years” explains Earth has depleted its resources and is dying, and Ziggy has been sent by beings called the Infinites to warn humanity they have just five years left.

Ziggy is described in detail in “Ziggy Stardust” as having “screwed-up eyes and screwed-down hairdo.” The character was inspired by a number of sources—the name Ziggy came from a tailor’s shop, while “Stardust” was taken from an artist called Legendary Stardust Cowboy. As for Ziggy’s persona, including his ultimate downfall, that was modeled after 1960s rock star Vince Taylor, who believed himself to be an alien god and who Bowie saw as “an example of what can happen in rock ’n’ roll.”

The concept itself unfolds through the rest of the album. In “Soul Love,” Ziggy decides humanity is worth saving because of love, while “Starman” is his message of hope to the them.

“Ziggy is advised in a dream by the infinites to write the coming of a starman, so he writes ‘Starman,’ which is the first news of hope that the people have heard,” he explained in an interview with William S. Burroughs. “So they latch onto it immediately.”

Eventually, Ziggy becomes a rock star, but the hedonistic lifestyle proves to be his undoing. He reaches out to his fans in closing track reaching out to his fans in “Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide,” and the Infinites destroy him.

“When the infinites arrive, they take bits of Ziggy to make themselves real, because in their original state they are anti-matter and cannot exist on our world,” he explained in his interview with Burroughs. And they tear him to pieces onstage during the song ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide.’”

Despite the success of Ziggy Stardust, it wasn’t long before Bowie was bored with the character and ready to move on.

“By the time we’d gotten it on the road and I’d been doing it for 18 months, oh God, I couldn’t wait to move on to something else,” he told NPR’s Terry Gross in a 2002 interview.

In 1973, he debuted a new character—Aladdin Sane.

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