Both as a standalone and as part of the DSOTS album, you can take this lyric as read. As a matter of public record, Jourgensen's drug intake was legendary even in the 1980s. By the late 90s, in his own words, he was grappling with massive addiction issues and had lost almost everything: friends, spouse, money and had nearly died more than once. "Dark Side of the Spoon" is a both funny & sad title for an album made by a musical genius who was losing the plot; and this song is a message to his fans & friends saying he knows it. It's painful to listen to so I'm glad the "Keith Richards of industrial metals" wised up and cleaned up. Well done sir.
It's a God-awful small affair
To the girl with the mousy hair
But her mummy is yelling "No"
And her daddy has told her to go
But her friend is nowhere to be seen
Now she walks through her sunken dream
To the seat with the clearest view
And she's hooked to the silver screen
But the film is a saddening bore
For she's lived it ten times or more
She could spit in the eyes of fools
As they ask her to focus on
Sailors fighting in the dance hall
Oh man! Look at those cavemen go
It's the freakiest show
Take a look at the lawman
Beating up the wrong guy
Oh man, wonder if he'll ever know
He's in the best selling show
Is there life on Mars?
It's on America's tortured brow
That Mickey Mouse has grown up a cow
Now the workers have struck for fame
'Cause Lenin's on sale again
See the mice in their million hordes
From Ibiza to the Norfolk Broads
Rule Britannia is out of bounds
To my mother, my dog, and clowns
But the film is a saddening bore
'Cause I wrote it ten times or more
It's about to be writ again
As I ask you to focus on
Sailors fighting in the dance hall
Oh man! Look at those cavemen go
It's the freakiest show
Take a look at the lawman
Beating up the wrong guy
Oh man, wonder if he'll ever know
He's in the best selling show
Is there life on Mars?
To the girl with the mousy hair
But her mummy is yelling "No"
And her daddy has told her to go
But her friend is nowhere to be seen
Now she walks through her sunken dream
To the seat with the clearest view
And she's hooked to the silver screen
But the film is a saddening bore
For she's lived it ten times or more
She could spit in the eyes of fools
As they ask her to focus on
Sailors fighting in the dance hall
Oh man! Look at those cavemen go
It's the freakiest show
Take a look at the lawman
Beating up the wrong guy
Oh man, wonder if he'll ever know
He's in the best selling show
Is there life on Mars?
It's on America's tortured brow
That Mickey Mouse has grown up a cow
Now the workers have struck for fame
'Cause Lenin's on sale again
See the mice in their million hordes
From Ibiza to the Norfolk Broads
Rule Britannia is out of bounds
To my mother, my dog, and clowns
But the film is a saddening bore
'Cause I wrote it ten times or more
It's about to be writ again
As I ask you to focus on
Sailors fighting in the dance hall
Oh man! Look at those cavemen go
It's the freakiest show
Take a look at the lawman
Beating up the wrong guy
Oh man, wonder if he'll ever know
He's in the best selling show
Is there life on Mars?
Lyrics submitted by numb, edited by Smxxch, Mellow_Harsher, Waterlord, aljosa95, BowieTheStarman
Life On Mars? Lyrics as written by David Bowie
Lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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The question "Is there life on mars?" is, I think, like saying "Is this the best we can do? Help! Stop the world I want to get off!" I think he wrote it as a stream of consciousness. maybe not...
I agree, tells the story of a innocent girls who is disappointed and yearns for something else.
@georgy You are entirely correct, and I am afraid all other (lengthy) explanations are wrong. <br /> <br /> Bowie actually gave an interview about writing this song, stating it came to him after a group of sailors got into a fight in a park, where he was one morning. He took the bus back to his studio and composed. <br /> <br /> The girl protagonist can't find an escape from her family problems, not in film, not elsewhere. And on a larger scale, America's rise to power after the horizon of the British empire where once the sun never sat, is not without its own compromises. The escapes of media are insufficient to cope with bitter realities. As you have said, "is this the best we can do"? Gosh, I hope there is "Life on Mars", because this here is a mess.
@georgy I heartily agree, George.
@georgy @georgy thanks for confirming what I thought about the song. Yes I've read a lengthy explanation that I think is lost I its own confusion. "Is there life on Mars"... Screams of escape to me. Is there somewhere better than here.
@georgy agreed. Although in nostalgic retrospect, it's hard for me to imagine wanting to stop the world and get off as you sat and wrote this , the summer after I graduated from high school. Especially considering how the world is now. It's even harder to imagine it in '71. Literally as I was not yet born. Figuratively because I've always imagined that if I could time travel to a different time, it would be the early 70s. <br /> <br /> 2024 blows. Social media blows. Or is it that I'm becoming increasingly jaded? If I'm still around in my very early 60s, maybe this page will still be here and Gen Z can tell me. Although I will probably just have to ask my kids since technology has progressed so much in the past 22 years that I'm sure in another 22 years if the world is still even here and not some post apocalyptic wasteland... I'll likely have no idea how to use it anymore. Barely do now and I haven't hit 40 quite yet.<br /> <br /> Damn I miss 2002 internet. Met my husband back in those "wild west" days of the "here"<br /> <br /> My God I need to go to bed and quit reading song analyses... <br /> <br /> Okay, um... Gonna awkwardly leave now.