The David Bowie works

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That's one small step for Major Tom - one giant leap for David Bowie.

Or is it the other way around? David Bowie had tried and tried and tried with different band constellations, artist names and style changes, releasing a handful of singles between 1964 and 1967 as well as his debut album in 1967. He had moved from rhythm and blues to cabaret and easy listening, but with little success. The releases have showed some signs that Bowie had some unusual ideas, but the quality was mixed, and overall the songs were not outstanding enough to make an impact on a scene where other artists had done similar things, just way better.

But then in 1969 came a truely unique single that didn't sound like anything else. "Space Oddity" was used for the BBC transmissions of the moon landing; it didn't make an impact at first, but later in the same year it suddenly climbed into the UK top 10, deservingly becoming David Bowies first hit. And I think most fans will agree this is where the story really begins. Indeed, almost all Greatest Hits compilations with David Bowie begin with "Space Oddity", or just have it as the oldest track. It is also worth noticing, that the many CD re-releases of his albums begin with the 1969 album on which it appears, thus omitting the 1967 David Bowie album which has only been re-releaed separately, along with his early singles.

For the first time, Bowie has written a truely original song. The melody is much more focused than anything he had written before, but a lot of praise should also be put on the creative arrangement. Clearly, there is an echo of psychedelic rock here (as can be heard for instance in the cacophonic fade out), but in some ways I also find it kind of proggy (laugh at me if you like); there is a mellotron after all, but more importantly, the song abandons classic song structure. The initial "verse" ("Ground control to Major Tom") never comes back for instance.

Then there are the lyrics where we meet the astronaut Major Tom for the first time as he is leaving earth with his spaceship, but then something goes wrong, and the ground control (a.k.a the earth) loses contact with him, leaving him to an uncertain destiny. Major Tom reappears in several later Bowie songs, and I suppose you could say he gradually became a sort of an alter ego for David Bowie - who likes to portray other characters (Ziggy Stardust, Halloween Jack, The Thin White Duke, Nathan Adler...). The tale of Major Tom who is lost in space could be interpreted in many ways, and consequently I have always found it kind of sad that the 1980 song "Ashes to Ashes" simply states that "We know Major Tom's a junkie". Surely there are other possibilities in understanding his space adventure than drugs, and I admire many Bowie songs for their ambiguity. Why kill that ambiguity? (apart from that, I really like "Ashes to Ashes", it's a very catchy song from a musical perspective).

"Space Oddity" also shows a clear connection between music and lyrics. You can sense the nervousness about the spaceship taking off during the initial "verse": just listen to the uneasy harmonic structure. In the "bridge" after the second "chorus" where ground control says "There's something wrong, can you hear me Major Tom?", the panic is underlined by some more dramatic chords where we change towards the minor parallel key and then try to get back again, but without succeeding. And I could go on, but it requires more time and space to deliver a full song analysis.

"Space Oddity" is also the opening track on his second album from 1969, originally released as David Bowie in the UK. Most re-releases of the album have been entitled Space Oddity, probably to avoid confusion with the 1967 Deram album. The rest of the album differs a lot from the opening track, being mostly in the area of hippy'ish folk rock, and if you listen to these songs first, and then "Space Oddity", the latter doesn't sound like it's from the same album. The main reason probably being that "Space Oddity" was produced by Gus Dudgeon, whereas the rest of the album was produced by Tony Visconti - the first of many Bowie albums to be produced by him (he dismissed "Space Oddity" as a "novelty song").

In general the other songs are not nearly as strong, and also, unlike "Space Oddity", they sound more like a lot of other things that came out at the time. "Unwashed and Somewhat Slightly Dazed" is more than a little Dylan-influenced, and it has a loooong fade-out; I'm just waiting for it to end. "Memory of a Free Festival" contains a "Hey Jude"-like fade-out, repeating the line "The song machine is coming down, and we're gonna have a party" over and over again. Quite catchy, but nowhere near the Beatles masterpiece in terms of musical intensity. "Don't Sit Down" is a quite an amusing filler, but nothing more than that, whereas "God Knows I'm Good" is an attempt at social realism that is unlike almost anything he would write afterwards. In any case, the songs are much stronger than Bowie's earlier efforts. The best of them include "Letter to Hermione" which is a moody farewell to a woman, "Janine", which has quite a catchy chorus, and is foreshadowing Bowie's play with different personalities in the 70's ("If you take an axe to me, you kill another man, not me at all"), and perhaps "The Wild-eyed Boy from Freecloud".

The most famous of these songs is probably "Cygnet Committee" which seems to be about the flipside of hippie culture, but personally I find the words in this song much more interesting than the actual music. Centered around a spiritual leader (or "thinker" as he is called in the song) who is rejected by his followers, it touches a theme that was later treated in Ziggy Stardust, but one might also think of The Who's Tommy in this context. The album came out in the same year after all.

In general, I think the real milestone of the album is "Space Oddity", deservingly a big classic, and one of Bowie's most famous songs. This is where the "chameleom" truely came into his own. It is easy to hear why it became a single hit whereas the actual album didn't make much impact at the time.

Favourite song: "Space Oddity".

In that case, I'd better save my fave song from Hunky Dory until The Anders returns.

 

The title track and my favourite song from the album, although I must admit, I prefer Lulu's version.

 

 

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  Space Oddity (1969)

 

Ground Control to Major Tom (ten, nine, eight, seven, six.....)  Commencing countdown, Engines on, Check ignition and may God's love be with me. Now it's time to leave the capsule if I dare, And I'm stepping through the door and floating in a most peculiar way....  

 

Space Oddity (1969)

 

   David Bowie (1967)

 

 

 

When I Live My Dream