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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, Six)
Commencing countdown, engines on (Five, Four, Three)
Check ignition and may God's love be with you (Two, One, Liftoff)
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 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 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."
Ground Control to Major Tom
Take your protein pills and put your helmet on
Ground Control to Major Tom (Ten, Nine, Eight, Seven, Six)
Commencing countdown, engines on (Five, Four, Three)
Check ignition and may God's love be with you (Two, One, Liftoff)
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 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 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."
Lyrics submitted by Novartza, edited by m33rkat, milomojo330
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Kizz clearly has a grasp of the situation.
Why oh why does this song just have to be about heavy drugs to so many of you? Go read the book, then watch the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey and come back and tell me if you still think this song is about heroin.
It came out the year after the movie 2001: a space odyssey, based on the fantastic Arthur C Clark book the same name, written of a few years earlier. The song predates the real Apollo 13 incident by a year or so. it predates the song Ashes to Ashes by about a decade. The movie and book are about a guy (named Dave, FWIW) who goes on a long space voyage, experiences near death at the hands of his psychotic (but friendly) onboard computer Hal, has a very surreal experience at the hands of unknown, ancient extraterrestrial being(s), and is transformed into a strange new kind of space/energy/human/cosmic being seen in the final scene to be floating above the Earth as a space fetus and saving humanity from nuclear armageddon just in the nick of time. A quantum evolutionary leap for humanity mediated by those mysterious, ancient, inscrutable, benevolent alien(s). The human adventure continues. Dave comes back, but not in his previous form.
The song is a rather simple, beautiful musing on this story with a rather obvious, slightly ironic title to get a laugh. The song banks very heavily on Rick Wakeman's beautiful, soaring, floating keyboard parts that in years to come would help give wings to many a great Yes song.
No heroin. Yes, ten years later David Bowie would write a little throwaway ditty called Ashes to Ashes that mines the success of this song in which he asserts "Major Tom's a junkie" but that itself is a figurative reference at most and one that does not inform us at all about what David B was thinking about when he wrote the original song.
Right? Right!
To take this song literally is a great injustice to the mind of David Bowie. Yes, he did like the move 2001: A Space Odyssey, and yes, he did name the song Space Oddity as a play on words inspired by the title of the movie. But I think, that, and the fact it takes place in space is as far as the comparison of song and movie can go.
@surferbeto I think this song is basically about nitrogen narcosis (rapture of the deep) in space. Divers who go too deep and stay too long get stoned on the saturated nitrogen in their blood and do stupid stuff like take off their facemasks and die trying to kiss imaginary mermaids. The imagery in the video shows Major Tom doing exactly that with spacemaids. Last verse he says goodbye to all, turns his ship loose like a horse that knows how to find its way home, and goes into the last chorus "By my tincan" no longer "in my tincan." It's Rapture of the Heights. Tragic death presumably soon to follow but Major Tom may not even notice.
@surferbeto And you are right, of course @ziggytwig <br /> The song is not meant to be taken very literally. It's not about ideas nearly as much as it.is about feelings. Specifically the feelings ordinary romantically imaginative young people on Earth were having about astronauts in space at the dawn of humanity's first amazing trips there.<br />