One side of the single sheet bears the title and lyrics for Rock N’ Roll Suicide. To the other are the title and lyrics for Suffragette City plus a note to the foot of the page mentioning two songs Bowie intended as late additions to the album: It Ain’t Easy and Round and Round.
The former (recorded during the sessions for Bowie’s fourth album Hunky Dory) did make it on to Ziggy but Round and Round was replaced and eventually used as a B-side.
A detailed letter of provenance from the vendor (who bought them in the early 1980s) dated the manuscript to the final Ziggy Stardust recording sessions at Trident Studio. Apparently used to prepare the lyrics sheet printed on the album’s inner record bag, they were loaned to the V&A in 2013 as part of its Bowie retrospective and toured with the exhibition for the next five years.
Omega Auctions has a good track record with Bowie memorabilia and had previously sold the artist-written lyrics for Jean Genie (£46,000 in February 2023) and Starman (£165,000 in September 2022).
This Rock N’ Roll Suicide/Suffragette City sheet sold somewhere in the middle of these two results at £72,000. The estimate at the saleroom in Newton-Le-Willows, Merseyside, was £50,000-100,000.
