David Bowie – Space Oddity

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David Bowie – Space Oddity (Official Video)05:05

“Space Oddity” was originally released in 1969 on Bowie’s self-titled album and timed to coincide with the moon landing. Released as a single, the song made #5 in the UK, becoming his first chart hit in that territory. In America, the single found a very small audience and bubbled under at #124 in August 1969.
Album charted #1 in UK and #15 in USA.

Bowie wrote this after seeing the 1968 Stanley Kubrick movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. “Space Oddity” is a play on the phrase “Space Odyssey,” although the title does not appear in the lyrics. The song tells the story of Major Tom, a fictional astronaut who cuts off communication with Earth and floats into space.

Three different videos were made of this song by three different directors. The first, directed by Malcolm J. Thomson, shows Bowie as an astronaut and appears in his 1969 promotional film Love You Till Tuesday.

The next one came in 1972 when Mick Rock directed Bowie singing the song with an acoustic guitar surrounded by mission control imagery. Rock, who was primarily a still photographer, was doing a lot of Bowie’s videos around this time; he also shot “Life On Mars?” and “The Jean Genie.”

The third version Bowie filmed with David Mallet in 1979 for air on the New Year’s Eve show The Will Kenny Everett Ever Make It To 1980?, which Mallet directed. Bowie recorded a new version of the song for this version with Hans Zimmer on piano.

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