The album is the story of an alien rock superstar called Ziggy Stardust who reaches fame just as the Earth enters the last five years of its existence. He ends up the victim of his own success and becomes a "rock n roll suicide."

"In one instant, in a spiritual breaking of the clouds, Ziggy was born. He hung on the stars and gestured with infinite grace and precision. He breathed the cool winds and caressed divinity as if it were his lover. And then he wove his web of poetry and beckoned from the skies to the children. And the children heard, and the children came. In their thousands they came and listened. And in his words they found life and hope. Manifested in Ziggy's songs they perceived the true depth of the meaning of the word 'truth'. And so they demanded more and more, until they tapped the very source of this fragile creature and sucked out his energy, channeling it through the crowds to reach the hysteria. Demanding more and more... until finally the truth had become like shattered fragments of glass, and his soul had been ravaged. And there was nothing left to mark his passing except tiny grains of Stardust which was swept up by the wind and sprinkled into the coloured hair of children all across the planet Earth...." - Unknown source

There's a Starman waiting in the sky
He's told us not to blow it
Cause he knows it's all worthwhile
He told me:
Let the children lose it
Let the children use it
Let all the children boogie...