Bowie lyrics hit the right notes

DAVID Bowie’s handwritten Starman lyrics have sold for £203 000 (about R4 million) at auction in Australia.

The A4 sheet features the words to the legend’s 1972 song as well as his corrections and edits.

The winning bidder was Olivier Varenne, the director of acquisitions and alliances and collections at the Museum of Old and New Art (Mona) in Tasmania.

The museum’s owner David Walsh said “We got carried away and paid too much. It’ll make an appearance in the expanded library we are constructing.”

Paul Fairweather, of Omega Auctions, added: “We had almost unprecedented interest from around the world… We had five telephone lines in operation for the sale as well as bidders online and in the room.

The lyric sheet had been with the same owner since the 1980s and had previously been displayed at the V and A Museum in London as part of the institution’s David Bowie collection. |