David Bowie Starman lyrics soar in sale

A sheet of graph paper with the handwritten lyrics by David Bowie for his hit song Starman has sold for a hammer of £165,000 at Merseyside auction house, Omega Auctions.

The A4-sized sheet of paper had a pre-sale estimate of £30,000-£40,000 and is believed to have been written around January 1972. It also includes various amendments, with any spelling errors crossed out.

The lyric sheet is from the time that Bowie was recording some of the final sessions for one of his most career-defining albums, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, which was released in June 1972. Bowie and his group later performed the song on the hugely popular music show, Top of the Pops, which helped to propel the iconic singer’s career to new heights.