In the months leading up to the release of ★, David Bowie made two of the most memorable music videos of his career — one for the title track, and the other for “Lazarus.” Now, the designer responsible for the album’s already-iconic visual style, Jonathan Barnbrook, has directed an official, animated lyric video for its other standout song, “I Can’t Give Everything Away.”
Like so much of ★, that closing track — which opens with the words, “I know something’s very wrong” — is full of lines that have taken on new meaning since Bowie’s death in January. Through some combination of its sentiments and its placement at the end of the album, “I Can’t Give Everything Away” has come to sound like a final farewell. Set amid the vastness of (where else?) outer space, Barnbrook’s video seems to return Bowie’s sentiment, at one point stirringly invoking an infinity sign that also features in the artwork surrounding the release. In a message on Bowie’s official Facebook page, the designer describes his intentions for the clip:
This is really a very simple little video that I wanted to be ultimately positive. We start off in black and white world of ★, but in the final chorus we move to brilliant color, I saw it as a celebration of David, to say that despite the adversity we face, the difficult things that happen such as David’s passing, that human beings are naturally positive, they look forward and can take the good from the past and use it as something to help with the present. We are a naturally optimistic species and we celebrate the good that we are given.
Watch the lyric video for “I Can’t Give Everything Away” below: