DAVID BOWIE - SPACE ODDITY

SPACE ODDITY

DAVID BOWIE

SONGWRITER: DAVID BOWIE

COUNTRY: U. K.

ALBUM: SPACE ODDITY

LABEL: PHILIPS RECORDS

GENRE: PSYCHODELIC FOLK

YEAR: 1969

 

            David Robert Jones (8 January 1947–10 January 2016), known professionally as David Bowie(/ˈboʊi/BOH-ee), was an English singer-songwriter and actor. A leading figure in the music industry, Bowie is regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century. He was acclaimed by critics and musicians, particularly for his innovative work during the 1970s. His career was marked by reinvention and visual presentation, with his music and stagecraft having a significant impact on popular music.

             During his lifetime, his record sales, estimated at over 100 million records worldwide, made him one of the best-selling music artists of all time. In the UK, he was awarded tem platinum album certifications, eleven gold and eight silver, and released eleven number-one albums. In the US, he received five platinum and nine gold certifications. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996. Rolling Stone placed him among its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time and named him the "Greatest Rock Star Ever" following his death in 2016.

Born in Brixton, South London, Bowie developed an interest in music as a child. He studied art, music and design before embarking on a professional career as a musician in 1963. "Space Oddity", released in 1969, was his first top-five entry on the UK Singles Chart.           After a period of experimentation, he re-emerged in 1972 during the glam rock era with his flamboyant and androgynous alter ego Ziggy Stardust. The character was spearheaded by the success of Bowie's single "Starman" and álbum The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, which won him widespread popularity. In 1975, Bowie's style shifted towards a sound he characterised as "plastic soul", initially alienating many of his UK fans but garnering him his first major US crossover success with the number-one single "Fame" and the álbum Young Americans. In 1976, Bowie starred in the cult film The Man Who Fell to Earth, directed by Nicolas Roeg, and released Station to Station. In 1977, he further confounded expectations with the electronic-inflected album Low, the first of three collaborations with Brian Eno that came to be known as the "Berlin Trilogy"."Heroes"(1977) and Lodger(1979) followed; each album reached the UK top five and received lasting critical praise.

          "Space Oddity" is a song written and recorded by English singer-songwriter David Bowie. It was first released as a 7-inch single on 11 July 1969 before appearing as the opening track of his second studio album, David Bowie. It became one of Bowie's signature songs and one of four of his songs to be included in The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.

             Inspired by Stanley Kubrick's film 2001: A Space Odyssey(1968), with a title that plays on the film's title, the song is about the launch into space of Major Tom, a fictional astronaut, and was released during a period of great interest in space flight. The United States' Apollo 11 mission would launch five days later and would become the first manned Moon landing another five days after that. The lyrics have also been seen to lampoon the British space programme, which was, and still is, an unmanned project. Bowie revisited his Major Tom character in the 1980 lead-single "Ashes to Ashes" from Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) and the 1995 single "Hallo Spaceboy" from Outside, the third and final single released from that album. In addition, Major Tom possibly influenced the music video for "Blackstar", released in 2015 off of Bowie's final album of the same name.

          Written in the key of C major, "Space Oddity" was Bowie's first single to chart in the UK. It reached the top five on its initial release and received the 1970 Ivor Novello Special Award for Originality. His self-titled second album was renamed after the track for its 1972 rerelease by RCA Records and became known by this name. In 1975, upon rerelease as part of a maxi-single, the song became Bowie's first UK Nº. 1 single.

          In 2013, the song gained renewed popularity following its recording 44 years after Bowie by Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, who performed the song (with slightly revised lyrics) while aboard the International Space Station, and therefore became the first music video shot in space. In January 2016, the song reentered singles charts around the world following Bowie's death, which included becoming Bowie's first single to top the French Singles Chart. 

Ground control to Major Tom

Ground control to Major Tom

Take your protein pills and put your helmet on

 

Ground control to Major Tom (ten, nine, eight, seven)

Commencing countdown, engines on (six, five, four, three)

Check ignition, and may God's love be with you (two, one, lift off)

 

This is ground control to Major Tom

You've really made the grade

And the papers want to know whose shirts you wear

Now it's time to leave the capsule if you dare

 

This is Major Tom to ground control

I'm stepping through the door

And I'm floating in the 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 there's nothing I can do

 

Though I'm past one hundred thousand miles

I'm feeling very still

And I think my spaceship knows which way to go

Tell my wife I love her very much, she knows

 

Ground control to Major Tom

Your circuit's dead, there's 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 there's nothing I can do.