"For here, am I sitting in a tin can
Far, above the world
Planet Earth is blue
And there's nothing I can do"
The first 'space rock' on TV was Pink Floyd on Belgian TV in 1968 playing "Astronomy Domine," says Google (see/hear below). So if Pink Floyd were the sonic Big Bang of space rock in pop music history then David Bowie's "Space Oddity" in 1969 (still, basically, David Jones in this awards show appearance; also below) is the Epic of Gilgamesh of space rock.
Ground control to a guy in space, Major Tom, alienated and lonely in space, lamenting and/or enjoying the alienated distance, it's not clear, helplessly trusting the spaceship knows where to go, enjoying the ride in a pleasantly numb sort of way. Space is a virtual tabula rasa of alienation for freaks and geeks and outsiders and Bowie's their young clown prince stepping forward, their space rock blues singer, not even yet in space alien drag.
His eventual space alien personas arguably peak in Nicolas Roeg's The Man Who Fell To Earth in 1976. The plot is a broad farce of corporate rule and big moneyed corruption. Many scenes feel like inscrutable improvs and never add up to much. But Bowie the space alien has this thing for TVs, as many TVs as possible, and somehow manages to exude so much space alien weirdness, while at the same time this sympathetic ET-phone-home (six years before that movie) universal humanity. In the world of TMWFTE we're likely to find as much if not more humanity in space alien weirdos like Bowie. It's not the best anything but it is one of the better '70s doomsday and/or post-apocalyptic movies.
And "Space Oddity," 1969, as pop songs go, was on the one hand just another desperate stab at the charts timed around the Apollo moon landing, peaking at number 5 on the UK pop charts that year, but then eventually hit number 1 in 1975, and then number 1 in France and number 4 in the US in 2016, the year of Bowie's death. "Space Oddity" was also from the start so much more than just another pop hit. For one, it was this perfect songwriting distillation of psychedelia's fascination with space, space traveling, launching "Rocket Man," space aliens as a metaphor for freaks and social outcasts, launching 'space rock' poetics (arguably never equaled), and inspiring so many space rock creatives in various musical directions; his folkie space alien balladry, "Starman," Ziggy Stardust, crackerjack models of space alien glam rock (inspiring bands all the way up to Hedwig), krautrock experiments in Berlin, the post-punk Godfather's "Ashes to Ashes," confessing in the end Major Tom was a junkie ("junkie, strung out in heaven's high, hitting an all-time low") all along. The number of versions of "Space Oddity," by Bowie alone, could fill out a double album. Bowie's song grew out of the baroque psych pop folktale stylings of the Bee Gees and Beatles, projecting that style into outer space. Inspiring Peter Schilling's "Major Tom" and The Who and Elton John and Queen and the Pet Shop Boys and D'Angelo, etc. But no one takes the lyrical possibilities of space rock further than Bowie, turning it into a language of teenage/artist alienation and freak solidarity.
Here's a super early live version, at an awards event, still in his standard-issue hippie David Jones style. The mild mannered audacity of the performance is impressive. He doesn't have another hit for three years, until he returns to the 'space rock' theme in "Starman."
Here's the full 'space rock' treatment from '72, the first version with Tony Visconti doing the production,
And another from '74 on Midnight Special in one of his several space alien getups and a glam rock peak,
I really completely lost touch after Let's Dance, 1983, I dunno, something about its inescapable commercial clout rubbed me the wrong way. Anyway, that was an unbelievably long time ago and I didn't go back to Bowie until Next Day (2013). The buzz from somewhere was enough to pique my curiosity. The punchy postpunk writing and the gritty band sound got me right away. I was so wowed at first that I began sampling those lost 30 years of albums, thinking there must be a bunch more good stuff in there I missed, but if there was I couldn't find much of it. Nevertheless, Next Day is a totally worthy 21st century successor to Low ('77) or Station to Station ('76). I was a little slower on the uptake with Blackstar (2016), the sound more amorphous, dark lounge jazzy things. But in the wake of his death, the songs grew on me and won out. "Blackstar" is his last nod to his space rock mythos. The dramatic agony of "Lazarus" evokes a kind of end-of-life purgatory. The sweet gratitude of "Girl Loves Me." Something about the essential mystery of Bowie's stardom in "I Can't Give Everything Away." What a swan song of a farewell album.
In his last nod to the 'space rock' subgenre, he insists he's not a gangster, not a film star, not a pop star, he's a Blackstar, he doesn't know why. He just is,
And here is Pink Floyd's possibly first space rock performance on TV,
The inspiration for these remarks on "Space Oddity" and Bowie come from my recent reading of Rob Sheffield's On Bowie, a gushing 200 page personal tribute to Bowie written shortly after his passing. I'm not even close to the maximalist on Bowie's music Sheffield is but the depth of his enthusiasm, like with Dreaming the Beatles, is winning. I especially liked that this gigantic icon of freak solidarity and liberation, Bowie, ended up happily married to the Black African model Iman, and how for all the wild drug adventures and artistic pretensions when you got down to it Bowie was always still David Jones, a mimic, a Cracked Actor, a Blackstar, et al, with a self-deprecating and humble sense of humor. And a space rock pioneer, Goth rock crooner, postpunk Godfather, and one of Brit psychedelia's greatest creations.
