‘Space Oddity’: the widely misinterpreted classic by David Bowie
The late David Bowie had a penchant for mystery in all its forms. In many ways, his iconic status was established by his refusal to reveal every part of himself, instead allowing fans to put the pieces together themselves. Broadly speaking, weaponising intrigue greatly benefited Bowie, but it had downsides, as he periodically discovered. One of the most frustrating instances of this came via his timeless 1969 single, ‘Space Oddity’.
Widely hailed as one of the greatest songs of all time, Bowie finally saw his name in the headlines after its release. A complex track meshing psychedelia and folk with a light sprinkling of the Bee Gees stirred in for good measure, an extra layer of interest is afforded to ‘Space Oddity’ by the common belief that the subject matter is about the moon landing. This reading comes via the tale that it was allegedly rush-released in July 1969 to capitalise on Apollo 11’s moon landing later in the month.
The song initially sold poorly, but the single eventually reached number five on the UK charts, becoming Bowie’s first and only chart hit for the next three years. ‘Space Oddity’ was also the single that saw Bowie introduce the world to the character of Major Tom. Notably, he would revisit the figure in later singles, perhaps most famously in 1980’s ‘Ashes to Ashes’.
When speaking to Bill DeMain in 2003, Bowie revealed the song’s true origin. He explained that it is not about NASA’s moon landing but was inspired by Stanley Kubrick’s science fiction masterpiece 2001: A Space Odyssey, from 1968. Bowie was so mesmerised by the film that he went to see it “several times” and was, like many people, very stoned.
He said: “In England, it was always presumed that it was written about the (sic) space landing because it kind of came to prominence around the same time. […] It was written because of going to see the film 2001, which I found amazing. I was out of my gourd anyway, I was very stoned when I went to see it, several times, and it was really a revelation to me. It got the song flowing.”
Bowie then turned his attention to the BBC scoring the moon landing broadcast to the song. This led to many people forming the same erroneous belief about its themes. He continued: “It wasn’t a pleasant thing to juxtapose against a moon landing. Of course, I was overjoyed that they did. Obviously, some BBC official said, ‘Oh, right then, that space song, Major Tom, blah blah blah, that’ll be great.’ ‘Um, but he gets stranded in space, sir.’ Nobody had the heart to tell the producer that.”