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Space Oddity: The Harmony of Isolation · Star Trails: From Backyard Astronomy to Cosmic Wonder

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Howdy Star Gazers and welcome to this special
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episode of Star Trails. My name is Drew and I'm
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going to do something a little different today.
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I'm going to discuss a song that's been stuck
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in my head for weeks now. If you recall a few
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episodes back, I mentioned the first production
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car in space was a Tesla Roadster that SpaceX
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launched into a giant heliocentric orbit. In
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the seat was Starman, a mannequin wearing a space
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suit, and the song Space Oddity by David Bowie
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was playing on a loop. And, since that episode,
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that song has been playing on a loop in my head.
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I've played along with it on my guitar. I've
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listened to alternate versions of it. I've studied
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covers of it by well -known artists. I've been
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absorbed in its history and disturbed by the
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story it tells. I've tried to learn how it was
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made and, last night, I even played it on a ukulele
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at a weekly jam session I attend. I've always
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admired this song, along with many others in
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Bowie's catalog, but it wasn't until recently
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that I really listened to it from both a narrative
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and harmonic perspective. And the more I learned
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about this song, its history and usage through
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the years, and its connection to space exploration,
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which existed from the moment it was released,
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I just seemed to enjoy it even more. So in this
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episode, I'm going to break down 1969's Space
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Oddity, David Bowie's very first hit song. This
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isn't just a story about an astronaut. It's about
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drifting, physically, musically, and emotionally.
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To properly investigate it, we need to set the
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scene. Space Oddity was released in 1969, right
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in the hottest stretch of the space race. In
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1961, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the
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first man in space, famously musing about Earth's
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blue color from orbit. Not long after, Alan Shepard
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became the first American in space, and the race
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was on. Just eight years later, the United States
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was preparing for something that seemed impossible,
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landing a man on the moon. The previous year,
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Stanley Kubrick's 2001 A Space Odyssey was released.
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A slow -burn science fiction epic about a rogue
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AI and mankind's evolution from club -wielding
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early primates, to a spacefaring civilization.
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And even the title Space Oddity feels like a
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response to Kubrick's film. It's not an odyssey,
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as in a grand heroic journey, but it is something
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strange. These world events, and especially the
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movie, were factors that inspired Bowie to write
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Space Oddity, a sparse psychedelic folk song
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about an astronaut, Major Tom, who achieves orbit
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and the fame that goes with it. Yet something
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on his mission goes awry. and he helplessly watches
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Earth as he drifts away in space, presumably
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lost forever. Like a stage play or film, the
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song follows a three -act structure. We start
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from an orderly place, the control room of a
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launch facility. Major Tom is established as
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the hero. A countdown to lift -off quietly begins.
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If you're listening to the stereo version of
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the song, the countdown happens in your left
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channel, while Bowie's vocals occupy the right
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channel. In fact, in the stereo version, all
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the elements of this song are hard -panned left
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and right, which was a common technique of the
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era. I'm going to go over this more in a bit.
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In Act 2, Major Tom has achieved orbit, and the
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papers want to know whose shirts you wear, which
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I interpret as Tom achieving fame for his accomplishment.
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People are obsessed with him. much in the way
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celebrity reporters ask film stars who they are
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wearing at red carpet events. And now it's time
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for Major Tom to take his space walk to leave
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the capsule if he dares. However, something is
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wrong. Tom says he's floating in a most peculiar
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way and the stars look very different. There's
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a shift in the song's tone here. A guitar solo
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seems to send us farther into space, and when
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we return to the story, Major Tom is a hundred
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thousand miles away, virtually halfway to the
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moon. He makes one final plea. Meanwhile, ground
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control is panicking. In the final act, Major
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Tom seems strangely at ease with his predicament.
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Now he's floating far above the moon, watching
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Earth from afar. A cacophony of instruments and
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noise rises and eventually fades out as the song
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ends. And I'm immediately reminded of the ending
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of 2001, A Space Odyssey, when Dr. Dave Bowman
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takes a trippy journey through space and time
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before his transformation into the Star Child.
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The story of Major Tom is eerie and melancholy,
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but what makes it really unsettling is everything
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happening underneath it. Space Oddity mostly
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orbits around the musical key of C major, but
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Bowie tosses in some gimmicks that make the song
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feel quite unstable. Without getting too far
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down into a music theory rabbit hole, let me
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explain what I mean by the song's key. Songs
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generally revolve around a tonal center, especially
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pop songs which often cycle through the same
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three or four chords. Chords are derived from
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the musical key the song is written in. So imagine
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sitting at a piano and pressing only the white
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keys. Congratulations, you're playing in the
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key of C. which has no sharp or flat notes. To
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form chords, we look at the major scale of C,
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which is only seven notes, starting with C, D,
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E, and so on, until we circle back around to
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C again, now an octave higher. C, being the first
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note in the scale, means we can use it as the
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root note of the one chord, which is C major.
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Let's go a few notes up to E. This is the third
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note in the C major scale, which means it's a
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minor chord. Here's the melancholy E minor. In
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the opening verse, Bowie alternates between the
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C and E minor chords, which from the outset produces
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a feeling of drift or oscillation. As we move
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deeper into the verse, Bowie moves to A minor,
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but steps slightly outside the key and plays
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a D7 with F sharp as the bass note. That 7 chord
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imparts a certain bluesy or twangy sound here.
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The real outlier is the F sharp for the bass
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note. Remember, C has no sharps or flats. Here's
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what it sounds like. Bowie includes additional
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chords that aren't strictly diatonic, meaning
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they aren't part of the key of C. These are called
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borrowed chords, since we're taking them from
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adjacent keys, and some examples of this include
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moves from F major to the borrowed F minor during
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the verses. And then there's Bb, just a step
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lower than C, that introduces the Planet Earth
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is Blue line. And then there's this great transitional
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chord progression. That ends in two strums of
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A major, also a borrowed chord. The reason I'm
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harping on these borrowed chords is because they
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make the song feel emotionally unsettled. When
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you hear one, it feels familiar, but just slightly
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off. These borrowed chords aren't mistakes, they're
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used intentionally, like the music itself is
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stepping outside its comfort zone. And that mirrors
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what's happening in the story. Major Tom leaves
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the safety of Earth, and the unstable harmony
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follows him. There's another huge musical decision
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here. Major Tom doesn't go home in the end, and
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neither does the music. And what I mean by that
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is the song doesn't neatly resolve back to its
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tonal center of C major. Pop songs generally
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wrap up by returning to their one chord. For
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example, here's a simple progression that goes
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home to C major in the end. Space Oddity doesn't
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do that. In the ending freak -out section, it
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seems to leave the key of C altogether, drifting
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to D major and finally to E major. That leaves
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us feeling stranded as the music fades out, and
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that is a very intentional songwriting decision.
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I'd also like to take a moment to discuss instrumentation
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and production. Listen closely to these opening
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moments and see if you can hear a buzzing, organ
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-like drone under the guitar chords. That weird
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sound is Bowie playing a stylophone, a handheld
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synthesizer that was marketed to children. It
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came out just a year before this song, so it
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was a new futuristic instrument. It kind of sounds
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like a buzzing radio here. By sliding the instrument's
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stylus over the metal keyboard on top, you can
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produce eerie wah -wahs and squeals. Interestingly,
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Bowie was a big fan of the stylophone, and you
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can even buy a new iteration of it with a Bowie
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theme, including instructions for how to play
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several songs. Space Oddity is one of them, of
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course. As the song builds, another high -tech
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instrument of the time can be heard. Listen to
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the wall of symphonic strings here. That's not
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a string quartet. That's a Mellotron. An early
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keyboard instrument that doesn't generate sound
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like a synthesizer, but plays back actual recordings
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on strips of magnetic tape. Each key triggers
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a real violin or choir, but it sounds frozen
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in time and mechanical. And because it's tape
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-based, it's never perfectly stable. The pitch
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wobbles slightly, the timing isn't exact, and
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if you hold a note long enough, it just runs
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out. You've probably heard songs featuring the
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Melotron. It was famously used for the flute
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sounds at the beginning of Strawberry Fields
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Forever by The Beatles. A real example of a Melotron
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is expensive, but I have a couple excellent simulations
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of it here on my production machine. There's
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just something about these sounds recorded long
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ago that's so haunting. This particular emulation
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I'm playing is made by Arturia and features actual
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sounds recorded from a vintage Mellotron. In
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Space Oddity, this sound fits perfectly. It doesn't
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feel grounded or alive. It feels distant. fragile,
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like a signal drifting through space, slowly
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fading as it goes. The recording process also
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contributes to the song's ethereal quality. There's
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a generous use of reverb and echo, which pushes
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sound away, making them feel distant, like they're
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floating in a vast space. There's also subtle
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tremolo on the electric guitars. A gentle pulsing
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in the volume that keeps sustained sounds from
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ever feeling completely stable. And then there's
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the stereo mix. I already mentioned how the instruments
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are panned hard to the left or right, but here
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it creates something more psychological. Instead
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of a cohesive band, you hear elements separated,
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almost isolated from each other. Together, all
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these subtle choices are doing some real world
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building. So what actually happens to Major Tom?
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Well, no one really knows because Bowie keeps
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things deliberately ambiguous. This isn't a song
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so much about an astronaut as it is about isolation
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and emotional disconnect. Tom no longer feels
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connected to our world. Maybe it's a meditation
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on the price of fame itself, being adored by
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the planet, but feeling withdrawn and alone.
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The question that comes to mind is, did Major
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Tom willingly send himself adrift into the void?
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Because he seems at peace with the consequences.
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Another idea is that maybe he experienced some
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version of the overview effect. that feeling
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astronauts report after seeing the Earth from
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afar. It's the realization that Earth is a fragile
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place, that humanity's problems are small and
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insignificant, and the sobering realization that
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our world is a very, very small place in an expanding
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universe. We can find more clues to the song's
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meaning scattered throughout Bowie's five -decade
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-long career. The song Ashes to Ashes is considered
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something of a sequel to Space Oddity, largely
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owing to a line in its chorus which asserts,
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Major Tom is a junkie. Now, I personally don't
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like the idea of Major Tom as an addict, but
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this is what Bowie has given us. I prefer the
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song Star Man, which in my opinion sounds like
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the true sequel. Consider this interpretation.
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Major Tom disappears, and like Bowman in 2001,
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he returns in an evolved form, the Starman. However,
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Bowie never canonized that. Starman is on the
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Ziggy Stardust album, so it's related to the
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narrative arc of Ziggy Stardust, the rock musician
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from Mars. But again, there's the idea of isolation.
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The Starman would like to meet us, but he's afraid
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humanity isn't ready for him. Bowie loves to
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create these characters in his songs. Ziggy,
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Major Tom, Aladdin Sane, The Thin White Duke,
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and so on. Major Tom could be Bowie himself.
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Maybe Major Tom becoming a junkie is Bowie being
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self -referential about his own drug problems.
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However you want to frame it, it's interesting
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to see how many space references Bowie peppers
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throughout his work. Aliens are messengers, space
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is otherness, and contact is dangerous. And right
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up to the end, Bowie was singing about space.
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His final album, Black Star, was released in
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2016, just before his death. It's abstract, symbolic,
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almost ritualistic, but filled with cosmic imagery,
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stars, voids, death, transformation. It feels
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like crossing into something unknowable, and
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Bowie, near death, literally was. Space Oddity
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has been covered by a variety of artists through
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the years, including a note for note rendition
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by Def Leppard that even places the sound in
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the stereo field exactly like the original. However,
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one of my favorite renditions is by the flaming
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lips, who lean hard into the psychedelic aspect.
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But Space Oddity has achieved a cultural status
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that goes beyond rock music. It began life that
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way. In 1969, the BBC used it as the background
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music for its coverage of the Apollo 11 moon
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landing. It seems they didn't pay much attention
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to the lyrics. It was selected simply because
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it sounded spacey. Even Bowie was nervous about
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its use, fearing that if something went wrong
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on the mission, his song would be forever linked
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to a tragedy. Decades later, the song found its
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way into orbit. Astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded
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the first music video in space aboard the International
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Space Station. playing Space Oddity on a guitar
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and singing a modified version of Bowie's lyrics.
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This time, the astronaut makes it home. And now,
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more than 50 years after the last crewed missions
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to the moon, a new chapter has begun. As I'm
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recording this episode, four astronauts are on
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a journey deeper into space than any human has
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traveled before. The Artemis II mission will
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loop around the moon and return to Earth, splashing
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down in the Pacific Ocean. It's our first manned
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moonshot since 1972. I don't know if they're
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listening to Space Oddity, but they're following
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a path first taken by Apollo 11 in 1969, the
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same year the song was released. I suspect we'll
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still be listening to this song even 50 years
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from now. There's a certain irony in it, a song
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about drifting into the void of space. somehow
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reminds us what's at stake here on Earth. Well
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folks, I think I've finally purged this tune
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out of my own head, but I apologize if it's stuck
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in yours now. Thanks for taking this journey
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with me, and if you have any thoughts on this
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song or the episode, be sure to leave me some
23:55
feedback over at the show website, StarTrails
23:58
.Show. If you found this episode interesting,
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please share it with a friend who might enjoy
24:03
it. The easiest way to do that is by sending
24:06
folks to the website. And, if you'd like to support
24:09
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24:12
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24:19
in the show notes. Until we meet again beneath
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the stars, clear skies everyone.