Showing posts with label life on mars. Show all posts
Showing posts with label life on mars. Show all posts

16 Apr 2023

Brief Notes on David Bowie's 'Life on Mars'

David Bowie looking perfect in the video for 
'Life on Mars' (dir. Mick Rock, 1973)
 
 
David Bowie's arty glam rock ballad 'Life on Mars' is three minutes and forty-eight seconds of pure pop perfection [1].
 
Originally included as a track on his 1971 album Hunky Dory, it was released as a single in the summer of 1973 and although it only got to number three in the UK charts - kept off the number one spot first by Slade, then Peters and Lee, and, finally, Gary Glitter - I agree with the many fans and critics who believe it to be Bowie's finest song; one that became, rather ironically, his 'My Way' - i.e., the signature song he would frequently return to in performance throughout his career and which turns up again and again on compilation albums [2].         
 
To promote the single, photographer Mick Rock filmed a video that shows a heavily made-up Bowie looking extraordinarily beautiful in an ice-blue satin suit designed by Freddie Buretti [3] and miming the song against a stark white backdrop. 

It is, in its own way, just as perfect as the song and Rock achieves what he set out to do; namely, create a musical painting that captures perfectly what Malcolm McLaren would term the look of music and the sound of fashion.
 
In 2016, the video was remastered and re-edited by Rock and uses a remixed version of the song by the original producer Ken Scott, which strips the track back to strings, piano and vocals: click here - and enjoy!


Notes
 
[1] What makes 'Life on Mars' so perfect, apart from Bowie's own vocal performance and talent as a songwriter, is the string arrangement composed by guitarist Mick Ronson and Rick Wakeman's excellent playing of the same studio piano that was used by the Beatles when recording 'Hey Jude' in 1968 (and, later, in 1975, by Queen for their own moment of pop perfection 'Bohemian Rhapsody').  
 
[2] This is ironic because Bowie wrote 'Life on Mars' as an intentional parody of 'My Way' - the original French version of which, by Claude François and Jacques Revaux (entitled Comme d'habitude), he had once supplied English lyrics for (rejected by the song's French publishers). 
      Shortly afterwards, much to Bowie's annoyance, Paul Anka purchased the rights to the song and rewrote it as 'My Way', which was then recorded and made famous by Sinatra in 1969. In order to show that he was just as capable of creating an equally epic song, Bowie effortlessly tossed off 'Life on Mars'.      
 
[3] For more on Freddie Buretti, see the post entitled 'On the Designers Who Dressed David Bowie' (19 Dec 2017): click here.


15 Apr 2023

Is There Life on Mars?

Is There Life on Mars? (SA/2023)
 
 
The question of whether there is - or at some point has been - life on Mars is one that continues to excite the popular imagination, as well as arouse the professional interest of astrobiologists.
 
Indeed, the seach for microbial Martian life or, at the very least, traces of such life - so called biosignatures - is one of the main reasons NASA keep sending missions to the Red Planet.    
 
However, whilst evidence has been found that Mars could have once supported life in the past - for it wasn't always the dry and arid planet that we know today - there's nothing to indicate that life is still present now.      
 
But the thing is, I don't really understand why it matters or why anyone should care: for whilst there may or may not have been life on Mars billions of years ago, there's presently an abundant and mind-boggling variety of living organisms here on Earth - it's the freakiest show, as Bowie might say.
 
Indeed, as the above photograph illustrates, there's probably more life to be found on a single red tile of my front door step than on the entire surface of the Red Planet and surely we should cherish and preserve this life, rather than spend billions of dollars looking for alien beings.        
 
For me, a tiny baby garden snail inspires far more wonder than E.T. (Oh man, look at those molluscs go!)


19 Dec 2017

On the Designers Who Dressed Ziggy Stardust

Photo of David Bowie by Masayoshi Sukita 
wearing a striped bodysuit by Kansai Yamamoto 
designed for the Aladdin Sane Tour (1973)


Bowie always had a thing for Japan. And it's difficult to think of his alien pop persona Ziggy Stardust without also thinking of the traditional form of Japanese musical theatre known as kabuki and the celebrated Japanese fashion designer Kansai Yamamoto who created many of the iconic outfits worn during this period of Bowie's career (and, apparently, inspired the flaming-red hair style).

But, if I'm honest, Yamamoto's designs are just a little too theatrical for my tastes. I don't mind elaborate outfits and outlandish makeup, but don't like fancy dress or things that are made to be worn on stage by performers only. And that's why I much prefer the fabulous ice-blue Life on Mars satin suit designed by Freddie Burretti (1973):




For me, Bowie looks perfect wearing this suit in the video directed by Mick Rock [click here]. A little less alien and androgynous than when dressed by Yamamoto, but far more heroic and dandyish.

It's a shame that Burretti doesn't get more recognition for helping shape Ziggy's sartorial aesthetic - for not only did he make this outfit, he also designed the colourful quilted jumpsuit Bowie wore for his seminal appearance on Top of the Pops in July 1972, singing Starman [click here].*             

To be fair, when news broke of Burretti's death in 2001, Bowie generously paid tribute to the young Londoner whom he'd first met at a gay club (El Sombrero) in the late 1960s, saying that Freddie was not only one of the nicest, but also one of the most talented spirits that he'd worked with.     


Notes 

*Although the broadcast date for this performance on TOTP is sometimes mistakenly given as April 14th 1972, it was actually shown on July 6th, having been recorded the day before. 

Readers interested in knowing more about Freddie Burretti might like to watch the documentary by Lee Scriven: Starman: Freddie Burretti - The Man Who Sewed the World (2015).