Space Oddity – David Bowie

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Space Oddity – David Bowie

Today would have been David Bowie's 74th birthday, and it's the 5th anniversary of him passing on the 10th. I remember my dad was taking me to the train station when news of his sudden death came on the radio, it shocked the music world especially as he had only just released a new album. David Bowie was yet another of the 70's artists that I never quite got, really liked some of his songs but couldn't ever see the musical genius that most other music lovers could. This is an amazing song, it so sums up the space race around the time of it's release 1969. Bowie really did move with the times, I like a song of his, 'Love You Till Tuesday' which was released in the swinging sixties. Glam Rock then had a strange effect on his appearance and song subject matter. His later life stuff went well above my head, to conceptual for me. My main image of Bowie is dancing his way through one of the campest videos ever with Mr. Moves Like Jaggar when they released 'Dancing In The Street' as an 80s duo.

I have Bowie's 70's greatest hits and his more rock numbers are fantastic, odd lyrics, subject matter and let's be fair he wasn't the best ever singer. But for all that, he was an amazing artist, kept reinventing himself, managed to keep himself on the right side of current and influenced a lot of the musicians and artists that followed.

This song is like a mini opera, it manages to tell such a clever little story. The excitement of Major Tom as he's broadcasting from space turns to fear as he discovers that his space ship is malfunctioning and he's drifting off into the endless darkness. The backing is so well constructed, just spaced aged enough to make you visualise the tin can he's floating around in. You get the sense of lose and vastness and the lyrics play with you so you have to fill in the gaps of the story. Love the way 'Can you hear me, Major Tom?' gets changed into 'Can you "Here am I floating 'round my tin can.' The clever song title and quite intro brings this all together to being an iconic music moment.

Favourite lyric : And I'm floating in a most peculiar way / And the stars look very different today

Location: Rayleigh, UK

Comments

  1. imlanguagesMay 17, 2021 at 10:29 AM

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