Sunday, August 31, 2008

Song of the Week - Space Oddity by David Bowie

I have 5,517 songs on iTunes. This is one of them

This one goes way back into the archives. This was David Bowie's first big hit, in 1969, although only in England. It wouldn't be until Ziggy Stardust in 1972 that Bowie started to appeal to a larger US audience. I first became aware of Bowie with his Hunky Dory album of 1971 and then I managed to find his earlier work. I was a big fan of Bowie and I have most of his albums up through his 1983 release Let's Dance. But I lost interest and I don't know his later work. His last studio album was 2003's Reality which I know nothing about.

I'd never seen this video before. Bowie constantly changed his appearance throughout his career. This was one of his more flamboyant looks. You gotta love the orange hair.



Ground control to major tom
Ground control to major tom
Take your protein pills and put your helmet on

Ground control to major tom
Commencing countdown, engines on
Check ignition and may gods love be with you

Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five,
Four, three, two, one, liftoff

This is ground control to major tom
Youve really made the grade
And the papers want to know whose shirts you wear
Now its time to leave the capsule if you dare

This is major tom to ground control
Im stepping through the door
And Im floating in a most peculiar way
And the stars look very different today

For here
Am I sitting in a tin can
Far above the world
Planet earth is blue
And theres nothing I can do

Though Im past one hundred thousand miles
Im feeling very still
And I think my spaceship knows which way to go
Tell me wife I love her very much she knows

Ground control to major tom
Your circuits dead, theres something wrong
Can you hear me, major tom?
Can you hear me, major tom?
Can you hear me, major tom?
Can you....

Here am I floating round my tin can
Far above the moon
Planet earth is blue
And theres nothing I can do. Get Complimentary Ringtone

4 comments:

Dubbs said...

Love Bowie, love the song.

Have you seen the movie "Mr. Deeds"? Adam Sandler has a fun moment while singing this song. Good stuff.

Steve Gierman said...

Absolutely LOVE this song!

Motherscratcher said...

This is one of my favorite songs. I love Bowie. His stuff really holds up and I keep finding "new" things that he released decades ago.

2 other points. If you want to know how good Nirvana really is put "Man Who Sold The World" into youtube. There are a few (at least there were) live Bowie renditions. I'd never heard the original before. Talk about weird. It blew me away that Cobain et al could take such an obscure, quirky, strange song and turn it into such a masterpiece.

The music from "The Life Aquatic" is basically an accoustic Bowie in spanish. It's pretty interesting for a fan.

That is all.

capewood said...

Although A Space Oddity was originally released in 1970, it wasn't a hit until after it was re-released in 1972. The Album The Man Who Sold The World was released in 1971 and pretty much ignored. It also was reissued. After Hunky Dory I managed to find The Man Who Sold The World but in pre-Amazon.com and pre-eBay it was hard to find. There are a lot of good songs on the album. The Nirvana remake was pretty good. My kids didn't believe me that it was originally a David Bowie song. Bowie is pretty much yesterday's news to them, although they pulled out some of my old LPs to listen to.