“Who is David Bowie’s Major Tom? “

Credit (Image of David Bowie as Astronaut. (n.d.). [Photograph])

David Bowie’s giftedness did not only create eclectic songs but also multiple personas, films and paintings. One of the most outstanding personas that he created was Major Tom. In some of his songs, he kept mentioning this character, Major Tom. In this article, we will look closer in which songs he mentioned Major Tom, and the story behind him in the songs named Space Oddity, Ashes to Ashes, Hallo Space Boy remix with Pet Shop Boys, and Blackstar.

Credit( David Bowie“Space Oddity”Sci-Fi Comic Book Mashup.(n.d.)[Photograph])

Credit(Yathish,D.(2012).Image of Space Oddity David Bowie by Deviantart[Photograph])

Firstly, Major Tom appears as an astronaut in David Bowie’s one of hit songs Space Oddity which was released in 1969 (Gold Radio, 2019). In the song, Major Tom leaves the Earth successfully and everything goes well during the flight, all of a sudden, he receives a warning from the ground control station and is told “Ground Control to Major Tom: Your circuit’s dead, there’s something wrong”, and the station tries to get back in touch with him (Gold Radio, 2019). However, Major Tom floats in space and his final words are “Here I am floating round my tin can, far above the moon. Planet Earth is blue, and there’s nothing I can do” (Gold Radio, 2019). In an interview in 2003, Bowie revealed that Major Tom was actually inspired by Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: Space Odyssey”, and this song even has resemblance to the name of the film (Turner, 2015).In the song, it is basically mentioned Major Tom’s experience in the space. Although it is claimed that Major Tom was sort of a character that referred to the period when David Bowie used drugs heavily, the allegation has no proof.

Besides that, Major Tom continues to appear in his other songs like Ashes to Ashes which was released in 1980 (Gold Radio, 2019). In Ashes to ashes, it can not be heard about Major Tom as much as it is heard in Space Oddity, he is called as a junkie in some of its lines which refers to someone with heroin addiction (Gold Radio, 2019). The lyrics of Ashes to Ashes allegedly describe Major Tom as Bowie’s own soul searching, rather than an actual continuation of the Major Tom story (Gold Radio, 2019). In addition to this, there are some claims regarding to the line about Major Tom that it can be an autobiographical explanation as Bowie was struggling with drug addiction (Gold Radio, 2019). Moreover, the song refers directly to Tom at the end disclosing that he becomes something of a legend, but sadly not for his heroic efforts (Gold Radio, 2019). In the song, Major Tom becomes a nursery rhyme for mothers to tell their children about drug addiction which is mentioned in the line “my mother said “to get things done, you’d better not mess with Major Tom” (Gold Radio, 2019). Thus, it can be said that junkie Major Tom is David Bowie’s actual self.

Credit(O.U.K.(1980).The single cover ofAshes to ashes by David Bowie[Album Cover])

Credit(Bowie&PetShopBoys.(1996).Single by David Bowie featuring Pet Shop Boys[Album Cover])

On top of that, people hear about Major Tom also in the song called Hallo Spaceboy which was released in 1996 (Gold Radio, 2019). Although the song does not directly speak of Major Tom, there are some references to him in the remixed version featured with Pet Shop Boys (Gold Radio, 2019). In the remixed version, the synth vocalist of Pet Shop Boys takes lines directly from the original Space Oddity and he sings the line “Ground to Major, bye-bye Tom” (Whatley, 2020). Hence, a continuation of the story of Major Tom that comes from Space Oddity can be seen. Besides that, the fans lastly see Major Tom in the music video of Blackstar which was released in 2016 just two days before his death (Whatley, 2020). In the video, there is a dead astronaut and his skull is taken by alien women and they bow down to it which indicates the way of their worshipping to a relic (Whatley, 2020). Later on, the director of the music video (Johan Rench) said “to me, it was 100% Major Tom” about the astronaut appearing in the Blackstar video (Whatley, 2020). Although Blackstar does not feature any reference to major Tom, 47 years later after Major Tom was introduced for the first time, David Bowie paid tribute to the astronaut in his most stark and striking ways once again (Whatley, 2020). “Knowing Bowie’s affection for an artistic statement, it is clear that this is Major Tom and his death is aligned with Bowie’s own.” (Whatley, 2020). Therefore, it can be said that David Bowie used Major Tom in one of his last videos for representation of his own situation which he died shortly after.

Credit(Bowie.(2015).Review of David Bowie Blackstar video [Photograph])

WORK CITED

Turner, B. (2015). “Was Major Tom a real astronaut?” HowStuffWorks. Available at https://entertainment.howstuffworks.com/was-major-tom-real-astronaut.htm

Gold Radio Editors (2019).” Apollo 11 at 50: A history of David Bowie’s Major Tom character”. GoldRadio. Available at https://www.goldradiouk.com/news/music/david-bowie-major-tom-character-explained/

Whatley, J. (2020). “Four songs which chronicle the life of David Bowie’s Major Tom “. Farout Magazine. Available at https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/david-bowie-major-tom-connection-space-oddity-ashes-hallo-spaceboy-blackstar/