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MiamiBuckeye's Monday Music Medley LXVIII (Ground Control to Major Tom)

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MiamiBuckeye's picture
April 16, 2018 at 5:23pm
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Yes, that subtitle is there for a reason. Today I wanted to pay tribute to one of the greatest trilogies in musical history: the Major Tom trilogy.

The Major Tom trilogy is interesting in that it's actually created by two separate artists: David Bowie and Peter Schilling.

The first two songs, Space Oddity (1969) and Ashes to Ashes (1980) were both written and performed by David Bowie and center around the character of Major Tom, an astronaut. The songs, although they may share their protagonist, are markedly different in both sound and tone, and reflect different stages in the life and philosophy of David Bowie. 1969's Space Oddity was written at the height of the Space Age, the same year that man first walked on the moon, and in that song Major Tom is presented as an exemplar of human striving and curiosity, an explorer who willingly severs all contact from a materialistic human society to journey among the stars. Many consider it to be Bowie's masterpiece.

In contrast, Ashes to Ashes (1980) takes a hard look at the romanticized portrayal of Major Tom from the previous song. It begins with the question, "Do you remember a guy that's been / in such an early song?" and then goes on to describe how Major Tom has become a junkie, "strung out on heaven's high / hitting an all time low." At this point in his life, Bowie was beginning to feel himself age, and was looking back at his earlier personas with a bit of disgust and regret. It's natural then that Major Tom goes from being an ubermensch to a low-down junkie.

And now for the third song, and the odd one out for an obvious reason. West German musician Peter Schilling wrote and recorded "Major Tom (Coming Home)" in 1983 as a tribute to David Bowie and the Major Tom character. While not officially "canon" for the Major Tom character, most fans will probably connect the two anyway. The song is a reimagining of the scenario from Space Oddity, about an accident after a spacecraft's launch. However, unlike in Space Oddity where it's suggested Major Tom purposefully disconnected his rocket from mission control, here the agency is left murkier.

And just for fun, why not take a look at this Venture Bros clip where lyrics from the first two songs are spliced into dialogue?

 

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