Bowie’s love for “Peaky Blinders” is not simply an apocryphal story from after his dying. In line with Knight, he truly despatched an indication of his adoration for the present on to star Cillian Murphy. “He despatched a photograph of himself with razor blades in his cap to Cillian a few 12 months in the past,” Knight shared in 2016, forward of the present’s third season. “I received in contact together with his individuals who got here again right away and mentioned he was a giant, huge fan.” Knight even says a Sony consultant visited him every week forward of the discharge of Bowie’s album “Blackstar,” which was launched simply two days earlier than the musician’s dying. As he put it, “Evidently his folks have been eager to determine that we may use it earlier than he died.”
The present finally integrated Bowie’s music “Lazarus” into its third season, underscoring a sequence by which Tommy Shelby (Murphy) slowly and painfully recovers from a cranium fracture, numbing his ache with medicine within the course of. The scene matches the lyrics and title of “Lazarus” completely, as Tommy is resurrected from a visit to dying’s door, sipping from a prescription bottle whereas Bowie sings “I am so excessive, it makes my mind whirl.” Murphy has additionally spoken about Bowie’s want to see considered one of his songs featured within the present, telling Spin 1038 in 2017:
“He was into the present and he wished his music for use within the present and it was very humbling, ? For somebody who grew up listening to David Bowie, that was a large honor and privilege that he was within the present and eager to be concerned. So we have been all very humbled that he was.”