Space Oddity

Blows my mind how many of you aren't seeing the big picture of what songs like these are about. Get out of your senses. This song is about alienation and distancing yourself away from people by getting so lost in your mind that you're high up above everyone else. It's about becoming cynical and seeing the world as a sad place but being unable to communicate with anyone about it. "Planet earth is blue and there's nothing I can do" - he realizes there's nothing he can do about all of the problems he sees in the world. "Can you hear me Major Tom? Can you hear me Major Tom? - He's lost communication with those on the ground (i.e. in reality). "The papers want to know who's shirts you wear" - something small and insignificant normal people would worry about seems so small and unimportant to this man metaphorically up in space looking down on the world. "The stars look very different today" - the more you spend time in your mind thinking about things, the more your perception of everything will change. Start to understand this principle of intuition, this is what a majority of the greatest songs are about. It's not about literal interpretation. This is what poetry is, the soul.

Major Tom finds himself floating in space, and all of a sudden, he knows that he was never meant for life on earth. "Planet earth is blue" in both the literal sense and the figurative: it's a sad place. There's nothing he can do about it. He marvels at the "tin can" that was his means of escape from the sad blue marble. He's "feeling very still," or calm and serene, floating in space. At that moment, he knows he's a space traveler. His "space ship knows which way to go." He leaves. He's finally free. He leaves a farewell for his wife, and sets out to start living his life where he belongs: floating round in his tin can. Either that, or it's about drugs. Yeah, probably the drugs.

on a tangent this song, written during the height of the space race, is more about bowie's looming alienation than space travel. this is a romanticized conception of casting out from the normal crowd and becoming something new and different. something bowie still succeeds in doing.

Given what all I know about the english, I'd have to say that, obviously, David Bowie- back in 1969- hopped into the TARDIS with Patrick Troughton, travelled to the year 1995, and saved Tom Hanks from being assassinated by Meg Ryan who was actually being mind-controlled by some new Dalek superweapon. Anyway, in thanks, Tom showed them the finished bits of Apollo 13, and Bowie was so impressed that he both made out with Tom, and wrote Space Oddity when the two went to get bananas from some mall or other. The Doctor told him that that would mess with all sorts of time causalities and such, but Bowie pointed out a record shop nearby, in which there were copies of Space Oddity, and The Doctor admitted that if it happened, Bowie should make sure that it still happens. So, Bowie gets partway through the song and gets writer's block. He's got no idea what to write. The Doctor decides that something has to be done about that, or there's no way the timeline will be preserved, so he grabs Bowie and takes them five minutes into the future to find out how The Doctor fixes Bowie's writer's block. Witnessing himself fixing Bowie's writer's block, he then takes Bowie one minute into the past, and does what he saw himself do. Bowie and The Doctor share a kiss, travel back to 1969, and Bowie releases the song and becomes a major star.

how can you not love bowie?

This song used to make me cry when I was little.

I really hope MajorTom6669 is kidding. Wow. Anyway, I've always heard it was about a drug overdose, and it makes perfect sense to me. He takes his pills, he's ready for liftoff, he goes into orbit, but something goes wrong and he can't find his way back to Earth. I don't know about any actual evidence to that effect, but I've always thought it was a great way to look at it. It's also a really unique song (despite the fact that it's about drugs) because most drug-related songs of the time were about good trips and opening your mind, while "Oddity" highlights the darker, deadlier side of drugs while still managing to make it seem romantic and even heroic to lift off and never come back. I'm not going to try to say I know Bowie personally and he told me, or anything stupid like that. It just always seemed to fit. I guess I'll cast my vote with the heroin people above. Either way, it's a great, classic song.

Go back and listen to the song again with this in mind: The man is a junky. he blasts off, gets high and over doses. "your circuits dead... there's something wrong, can you hear me major Tom?" Brilliant in it's simplicity really, but that is all. He even re-visits the theme and admits it in "Ashes To Ashes".

I have nothing to add, but hell, I feel like I must leave a comment on this song. Bowie is a genius.

Everyone says this is about a drug trip (and yeah, that's probably true) or a "doomed" space mission. The way *I* interpreted it when I first heard it and how I still like to interpret it is that Major Tom goes into space. While there, he is fascinated by the beauty, and has some sort of revelation. He says, "My rocket knows the way, tell my wife I love her." And then he intentionally cuts communication/circuit power. Thus, predetermining his suicide. I find it most beautiful that way. And, regardless if it's the correct meaning, I like it best. So, I don't think it was a "doomed" space mission as much as it is someone deciding to end it in the most beautiful way possible (really - what a way to go... floating forever in space).