{"id":9887,"date":"2016-03-22T11:24:50","date_gmt":"2016-03-22T10:24:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.taggedtalk.com\/blog\/?p=349"},"modified":"2018-04-09T14:32:11","modified_gmt":"2018-04-09T14:32:11","slug":"exploring-david-bowies-life-on-mars-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/9887-exploring-david-bowies-life-on-mars-2.html","title":{"rendered":"Exploring David Bowie\u2019s \u201cLife on Mars?\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cLife on Mars?\u201d has always been a favourite among David Bowie\u2019s songs, and even more so since his death in January. Many have performed it as a tribute, not least by Lorde at the Brits Bowie tribute, Rick Wakeman (the pianist on the original) and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=DzpTau4gLnY\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Sarah Blasko<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>A great song then; but one characteristic it shares with Queen\u2019s Bohemian Rhapsody, another much-loved track, is that the lyrics are fantastically obscure, particularly in the second verse.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>It&#8217;s a God awful small affair<br \/>\nTo the girl with the mousey hair<br \/>\nBut her mummy is yelling, &#8220;No!&#8221;<br \/>\nAnd her daddy has told her to go<br \/>\nBut her friend is no where to be seen<br \/>\nNow she walks through her sunken dream<br \/>\nTo the seats with the clearest view<br \/>\nAnd she&#8217;s hooked to the silver screen<br \/>\nBut the film is a sadd&#8217;ning bore<br \/>\nFor she&#8217;s lived it ten times or more<br \/>\nShe could spit in the eyes of fools<br \/>\nAs they ask her to focus on<\/p>\n<p>Sailors, Fighting in the dance hall<br \/>\nOh man! Look at those cavemen go<br \/>\nIt&#8217;s the freakiest show<br \/>\nTake a look at the lawman<br \/>\nBeating up the wrong guy<br \/>\nOh man! Wonder if he&#8217;ll ever know<br \/>\nHe&#8217;s in the best selling show<br \/>\nIs there life on Mars?<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s on America&#8217;s tortured brow<br \/>\nThat Mickey Mouse has grown up a cow<br \/>\nNow the workers have struck for fame<br \/>\n&#8216;Cause Lennon&#8217;s on sale again<br \/>\nSee the mice in their million hordes<br \/>\nFrom Ibiza to the Norfolk Broads<br \/>\nRule Britannia is out of bounds<br \/>\nTo my mother, my dog, and clowns<br \/>\nBut the film is a sadd&#8217;ning bore<br \/>\n&#8216;Cause I wrote it ten times or more<br \/>\nIt&#8217;s about to be writ again<br \/>\nAs I ask you to focus on<\/p>\n<p>Sailors \u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Still, while Queen&#8217;s effort may veer towards pomp and nonsense I have nothing but respect for Bowie&#8217;s lyrical craftsmanship. I think we will struggle to make perfect narrative sense of the song but nevertheless there may be some insights to be had.<\/p>\n<p>What does Bowie himself have to say about it? The back cover of Hunky Dory, the album from which the song comes, states \u201cInspired by Frankie\u201d, a reference to Frank Sinatra. The contemporary advertisement for the album adds more handwritten notes on the song, this time \u201cA sensitive young girl\u2019s reaction to the media.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Then there are the notes on the song for the 2008 iSelect compilation:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>This song was so easy. Being young was easy. A really beautiful day in the park, sitting on the steps of the bandstand. \u2018Sailors bap-bap-bap-bap-baaa-bap.\u2019 An anomic (not a \u2018gnomic\u2019) heroine. Middle-class ecstasy. I took a walk to Beckenham High Street to catch a bus to Lewisham to buy shoes and shirts but couldn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n<p>Workspace was a big empty room with a chaise lounge; a bargain-price art nouveau screen (\u2018William Morris,\u2019 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. Nice.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Another key reference is this interview from around 2002, specifically about the making of \u201cLife on Mars?\u201d<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/A5fV4KaMGbY\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>In this interview, Bowie tells the story of how he was asked to write an English lyric for a French song, called Comme D\u2019Habitude (rough translation, &#8220;As Usual&#8221;).<\/p>\n<p>The original song, entitled Pour Moi (&#8220;For Me&#8221;) was written by Gilles Thibaut (lyrics) and Jacques Revaux (music) and offered to singer Claude Fran\u00e7ois. The lyrics and music were adapted by all three, renamed Comme D&#8217;Habitude (rough translation, &#8220;As Usual&#8221;), and the song became a break-up song related to the ending of the relationship between Fran\u00e7ois and the young Eurovision winner France Gall.<\/p>\n<p>Bowie translated the song as Even a Fool learns to Love, and you can hear a snippet of his version in the interview above, but Fran\u00e7ois rejected his lyrics. (Bowie adds that it was \u201ca godawful lyric. Dreadful\u201d).<\/p>\n<p>Comme D&#8217;Habitude describes a relationship near its end; he is still in love but they see little of one another as he goes to work before she gets up (&#8220;Quietly I leave the house. Everything is grey outside. As usual&#8221;) and is in bed before she returns. &#8220;All alone, I&#8217;ll go and lie down in this big cold bed, as usual&#8221;. They make love but he is &#8220;playing at pretending&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Bowie translated the song as Even a Fool learns to Love. His version is also about a relationship gone sour, but tells the whole story, about a man who is the life and soul of the party (&#8220;a fool&#8221;), meets a girl, falls in love (&#8220;a clown and an angel so much in love&#8221;), but the joke &#8220;turns stale&#8221; and the time when even a fool learns to love becomes a &#8220;sour time&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe next time I heard it, it was My Way by Frank Sinatra,\u201d says Bowie. Fran\u00e7ois had rejected his lyrics, and Paul Anka had come up with My Way.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was really pissed off. It should have been my song. So I thought, OK I\u2019ll write my own version. So it\u2019s My Way on Mars,\u201d says Bowie.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cInspired? It was more revenge.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Life on Mars?&#8221;, while not exactly a relationship song shares with Comme D\u2019Habitude a sense of discontent with life and reflection upon it.<\/p>\n<p>Actually the opening lines do suggest a relationship &#8220;a godawful small affair&#8221;, one that is unacceptable to mum and dad. The girl goes out, like the man in Comme D&#8217;Habitude, into a grey and sad world. Her friend (boy or girl?) cannot be found.<\/p>\n<p>Bowie&#8217;s song then departs from the script, exploding into a kaleidoscope of images as the mousy-haired girl stares at the cinema screen. Yet this does not rescue her: she sees clearly that the fantasy world of entertainment will do nothing to change the greyness of her world. Mickey Mouse is not a real friend; he grows up &#8220;a cow&#8221; and whatever that means it is not flattering.<\/p>\n<p>The song becomes surreal as Bowie plays with reality.<\/p>\n<p>The girl is watching the film. The girl is living the film. The girl&#8217;s life is a film. The girl, or the narrator, wrote the film. The film is being &#8220;writ again&#8221; as we are trapped in our humdrum lives. \u201cA sensitive young girl\u2019s reaction to the media.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Is there Life on Mars? Wait a moment, how did Mars get into this song? Bowie is playing with us of course. Let&#8217;s look at a few shades of meaning:<\/p>\n<p>2001 A Space Odyssey, part inspiration for Space Oddity, &#8220;look at those cavemen go&#8221;, and note the little quote from Also Sprach Zarathustra as the song fades. The film&#8217;s central character goes to Jupiter not Mars, but hey, it&#8217;s all space; and like Space Oddity, inner space as much as outer space. Is there life there? Maybe, but it&#8217;s pretty desolate.<\/p>\n<p>Life on Mars is a B movie too, cheap sci-fi. It&#8217;s escapism but not life, not real life.<\/p>\n<p>Is there life on Mars? is a question of yearning, because there is no life on earth, or it seems that way in our most desolate moments.<\/p>\n<p>Bowie tells us that this kind of interpretation is not too far off. In 1998 he was interviewed by Alan Yentob for the BBC, in a kind of follow-up to Yenton\u2019s earlier documentary Cracked Actor.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/image_2.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"background-image: none; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-width: 0px;\" title=\"image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/image_thumb_2.png\" alt=\"image\" width=\"404\" height=\"349\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<em>David Bowie telling Alan Yentob about Life on Mars<\/em><\/p>\n<p>\u201cShe may be an ordinary girl,\u201d says Yentob, \u201cbut isn\u2019t she as alienated as any of your other characters?\u201d<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cI think she finds herself let down,\u201d Bowie replies. \u201cI think she finds herself disappointed by reality. I think she sees that although she\u2019s living in the doldrums of reality she\u2019s been told that there\u2019s a far greater life somewhere, and she\u2019s bitterly disappointed that she doesn\u2019t have access to it. It\u2019s very hard to think back to one\u2019s state of mind 25 years ago. I guess I would feel sorry for her now, I think I had empathy with her at the time. That\u2019s probably the difference.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>When asked in the 2002 interview referenced above about whether the song is about alienation, he says:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cA lot of it is. One\u2019s interior kind of isolation as well. It doesn\u2019t just mean one\u2019s social isolation, it can mean how you get in contact with your own feelings. It can be quite personal in that way.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy subject matter hasn\u2019t really changed over the years. I\u2019m still in a way writing about life on Mars, all these years later. (Laughs). And the man who sold the world \u2026 the way that I present songs has changed a lot. And the style for each album has changed considerably. I\u2019ll often try new rhythms and kinds of arrangements. It\u2019s like, I want to keep writing about the same subject but my approach, it\u2019s like I\u2019m trying to get into it, like finding a different door each time I approach that same subject.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Can we go further, and examine the lyrics with more precision? It is difficult because the song is deliberately surreal; yet there are intriguing connections which may or may not be intended. Is it Lennon (\u201cPower to the People\u201d) or Lenin who is on sale again? Bowie with his love of word play likely intended both meanings.<\/p>\n<p>What about \u201cThe workers have struck for fame?\u201d In 1941, there was a famous strike by Disney\u2019s (\u201cMickey Mouse\u201d) animators. One of their grievances was lack of credit for their work:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;To add insult to injury, the animators weren&#8217;t featured in the credits of the film, with all credit going to the owner of the studios himself, Walt Disney.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>says <a href=\"http:\/\/libcom.org\/history\/1941-disney-cartoonists-strike\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">this report<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Bowie however did not want to explain everything. Mick Rock, who worked with Bowie on a video for the song, says:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>I would not be so presumptuous as to try and put any meaning on it. Certainly David Bowie never has as far as I know. I don\u2019t know what it means. But it means a helluva lot to me, it\u2019s like a poem by Rimbaud, say, what does it mean? Intellectually it is very hard to define. You can only say, I love it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>I would not go so far as Rock; Bowie has given plenty of clues about his intent in writing the song. At the same time, he enjoyed leaving room for the listener\u2019s imagination and participation, referring to the French painter Marcel Duchamp and approving in <a href=\"http:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/alltechconsidered\/2016\/01\/12\/462744754\/david-bowie-the-internet-visionary\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">this interview<\/a> with Jeremy Paxman:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The idea that the piece of work is not finished until the audience come to it and add their own interpretation, and what the piece of art is about is the grey space in the middle.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>However you look at it though, it is a pretty gloomy lyric. Why do we like it? Well, it is witty, it is evocative, it is mysterious; and the music absolutely soars, complete with unexpected key changes and a near-octave leap from &#8220;on&#8221; to &#8220;Mars&#8221;. Like all the best music, it takes us out of ourselves to another place and makes our reality a little less grey than it was before.<\/p>\n<p><em>Thanks to members of the Steve Hoffman Music Forum for <\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/forums.stevehoffman.tv\/threads\/lets-have-a-think-about-david-bowies-life-on-mars.513241\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><em>assistance with puzzling out this song<\/em><\/a><em>, and to author Nicholas Pegg for the source of the quote from the Yentob interview, which he also references in his book The Complete David Bowie.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cLife on Mars?\u201d has always been a favourite among David Bowie\u2019s songs, and even more so since his death in January. Many have performed it as a tribute, not least by Lorde at the Brits Bowie tribute, Rick Wakeman (the pianist on the original) and Sarah Blasko. A great song then; but one characteristic it &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/9887-exploring-david-bowies-life-on-mars-2.html\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Exploring David Bowie\u2019s \u201cLife on Mars?\u201d<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1069,1518],"tags":[1099],"class_list":["post-9887","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-david-bowie","category-music","tag-david-bowie"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9887","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9887"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9887\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10507,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9887\/revisions\/10507"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.itwriting.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}