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?


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.

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Life on Mars? song meanings
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  • -2
    My Interpretation

    This song is a harsh critique of America in the early 1970s and how it’s crass consumerism and “other” offerings such as vacuous films (Sailors fighting in the dance hall) and horrible pop music (Alley-Oop, look at those cavemen go) are passed off as culture or a kind of pinnacle that foreigners or people of other mindsets should aspire to, but in the end are left empty and dissatisfied. The “girl with mousey hair” already knows this and "It's a god awful small affair", this America thing. It’s been shoved down her throat by her parents that she should look towards America, but she wants more from life than what is being offered. Unfortunately, she becomes “hooked to the silver screen”, a line that conjures up images of A Clockwork Orange and the Matrix and being “programmed” and/or brainwashed. It can also be said it’s about the passing of the WWII generation of the parents, who lived through war and poverty, to the 60s

    eyehopon September 12, 2012   Link

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