Life on Mars? (Song)

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Life on Mars?
David Bowie
publication December 17, 1971 (album)
June 22, 1973 (single)
length 3:48
Genre (s) Glam rock , art rock
text David Bowie
music David Bowie
album Hunky Dory

Life on Mars? (Eng .: Life on Mars? ) is a song by the British musician David Bowie .

The song, released in 1971 on the album Hunky Dory , was only released in 1973 as a single for 13 weeks in the UK charts and reached number 3. BBC Radio 2 described the title as a cross between a Broadway musical and a painting by Salvador Dalí with "one of the strangest lyrics ever" (German: one of the strangest lyrics ever).

background

In 1968 the French composers Claude François and Jacques Revaux wrote the French chanson Comme d'habitude , which was initially sung by Hervé Vilard . Bowie wrote an English text for the melody and titled the piece Even a Fool Learns to Love . Bowie's version, however, was never released. A little later Paul Anka bought the rights to the French original and rewrote it to My Way , which, as interpreted by Frank Sinatra, became a world hit in 1969. This success of Anka's version annoyed Bowie, as he later admitted on a German TV show, and led him to work with Life on Mars? to compose a parody of Sinatra's recording. In the explanations on the back of the Hunky Dory record sleeve , Bowie pointed out that it was Inspired by Frankie .

Bowie recalled in an interview with the Mail on Sunday : “This song was so easy. Being young was easy… I took a walk to Beckenham High Street to catch a bus to Lewisham to buy shoes and shirts but couldn't get the riff out of my head. Jumped off two stops into the ride and more or less loped back to the house up on Southend Road. Workspace was a big empty room with a chaise lounge; a bargain-price art nouveau screen ('William Morris' so I told anyone who asked); a huge overflowing freestanding ashtray and a grand piano. Little else. I started working it out on the piano and had the whole lyric and melody finished by late afternoon. "(Eng .: The song was so easy. Being young was easy ... I went to Beckenham High Street to take the bus to Lewisham to buy shoes and shirts, but couldn't get the tune out of my head. After two stops I more or less walked back to the house on Southend Road. The study room was a large, empty room with a chaise longue , one Art Nouveau canvas at a bargain price (' William Morris ' I told anyone who asked), a large overflowing freestanding ashtray, and a concert grand piano. Little more. I started working it out on the piano and had the whole composition with lyrics done by late afternoon. )

One critic alleged that the song was written after an intense and painful affair ("a brief and painful affair") with actress Hermione Farthingale . On a tour in 1990 Bowie introduced the song with the words: “You fall in love, you write a love song. This is a love song ". (Eng .: you fall in love, you write a love song. This is a love song.)

content

The interwoven narrated lyrics are about a sensitive young woman who hopes to be brought out of her traumatic home through media experiences; however, she finds this experience confusing and empty.

Bowie himself put it this way: “I think she finds herself disappointed with reality… that although she's living in the doldrums of reality, she's being told that there's a far greater life somewhere, and she's bitterly disappointed that she doesn't have access to it. "(Eng .: I think she is disappointed in reality ... although she lives in the quiet zone of reality, she is told that there is a much better life somewhere and she is bitterly disappointed that she has no access to it) .

reception

The song was first released as a single in 1973 and reached number 3 on the UK charts. Over thirty years later, the title hit 55 again for its use in the British television series Life on Mars .

In June 2015, the British music journalist Neil McCormick compiled a ranking of the “100 Greatest Songs of All Time” for the British daily newspaper The Daily Telegraph , did Life on Mars? in first place and described it like this:

"Gloriously strange sci-fi anthem. A stirring, yearning melody combines with vivid, poetic imagery to accomplish a trick very particular to the art of the song: to be at once completely impenetrable and yet resonant with personal meaning. You want to raise your voice and sing along, yet Bowie's abstract cut-up lyrics, force you to invest the song with something of yourself just to make sense of the experience, and then carry you away to a place resonant with intense, individual emotion. The magic and mystery of music and lyrics. It is something to behold. ”(Eng .: wonderfully strange science fiction hymn. A moving, longing melody combined with lively, poetic symbolism completes the art of this song: at first completely inaccessible and yet echoes with personal meaning. You want Raise your voice and sing along, but Bowie's abstract, small-cut lyrics force you to adorn the song with something of yourself, just to feel the experience, and then carry you away to a place full of strong, personal emotion. The magic and the secret of music and lyrics. It's something to look at.)

In a 2012 poll, Life on Mars? voted Bowie's best song. Digital Spy , a UK entertainment and media news website, hosted the survey and found it was Bowie's signature tune.

Cover versions

The website Secondhandsongs.com lists more than 130 cover versions of Life on Mars , from Tony Christie to Rick Wakeman (who also plays the original piano) to the London Symphony Orchestra . Dave Thompson writes of the cover versions of artists such as Marti Webb , The King's Singers , Barbra Streisand and (in Swedish) Abbas Anni-Frid Lyngstad that they all did not understand the connotations of the song and "degraded it to commercial pop mash". In contrast, he considers an unpublished recording by Peter Noone to be “pleasantly melodious”.

B side

The Man Who Sold the World is a song by Bowie that was released on the album of the same name in 1970 and was released for Life on Mars? was used for the back of the 1973 single.

On January 8, 1997, the BBC Radio 1 broadcast the special program "ChangesNowBowie". The British music journalist Mary Anne Hobbs asked Bowie on this program about this title, which he commented as follows: “I guess I wrote it because there was a part of myself that I was looking for. Maybe now that I feel more comfortable with the way that I live my life and my mental state (laughs) and my spiritual state whatever, maybe I feel there's some kind of unity now. That song for me always exemplified kind of how you feel when you're young, when you know that there's a piece of yourself that you haven't really put together yet. You have this great searching, this great need to find out who you really are "(Eng: I think I wrote it because there was a part of me that I was looking for. Maybe now I feel with the kind to live my life, my state of mind (laughs) and my spiritual state, more comfortable, maybe I feel that there is a kind of harmony there now. This song always illustrated the way you feel when you are young, when you know there's a piece of yourself that you haven't put together right yet. You have this great quest, this great need to find out who you really are).

Trivia

Life on Mars? was played on February 6, 2018 during the maiden flight of the Falcon Heavy rocket , which put an electric sports car into orbit towards Mars. There were also other allusions to David Bowie songs.

Life on Mars? 2005 also inspired the British television series Life on Mars - Caught in the 70s , the song is also played several times. The series is about a police officer who is thrown back in time from 2006 to 1973 and initially struggles to find his way around and desperately tries to get back to 2006. He has barely made it, but he realizes that he actually likes 1973 better than 2006.

occupation

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Sold on Song Top 100 'Life On Mars' . In: BBC . Retrieved September 28, 2016.
  2. ↑ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1030121/DAVID-BOWIE-I-went-buy-shoes--I-came-Life-On-Mars.html
  3. ^ Bowie: Boys Keep Swinging . Melody Maker magazine, March 24, 1990, pp. 24-26.
  4. ↑ http://www.bbcamerica.com/anglophenia/2016/01/10-things-you-need-to-know-about-david-bowies-life-on-mars
  5. ↑ a b Neil McCormick: 100 greatest songs of all time . Telegraph. Retrieved September 28, 2016.
  6. ^ David Bowie 1947-2016: 'Life on Mars' is named Bowie's greatest ever song in reader poll , Digital Spy. January 11, 2016. Retrieved January 23, 2016. 
  7. ^ Cover versions of Life on Mars , secondhandsongs.com, accessed June 11, 2019
  8. ^ "None of which dawned on the likes of Marti Webb, the King Singers, Barbra Streisand and (in Swedish) Abba's Anni-Frid Lyngstad, all of whom have reduced the song to MOR slush. But Peter Noone's unreleased version is winsomely sweet […] ”, in: Dave Thompson, Children of the Revolution. The Glam Rock Story 1970-75 , Cherry Red Books, London 2010, ISBN 978-1-901447-47-7 , p. 210
  9. ↑ Grant Wallace: Change Snow Bowie Transcript - Radio 1 . June 27, 1999. Archived from the original on September 2, 2016. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved January 19, 2013. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.teenagewildlife.com
  10. ↑ Falcon Heavy Test Flight , from minute 25:40. SpaceX, Youtube video.