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.

Get It On and Punk It Up With Marc Bolan

Marc Bolan with Dave Vanian of the Damned 

and Siouxsie Sioux in 1977

 

According to Sebastian Horsley, Marc Bolan was super-plastic profound:

 

"A curious hybrid of dandy and poseur, street urchin and visionary. The mass of contradictions could be held together only by the unifying power of art. The only real philosophy he had was that a human being was an art form in itself. He was entirely his own creation: A creature lovingly constructed from the materials of his imagination. He was important for being trivial yet deep, poppy yet interesting - all the things I came to love in one person." [1]

However, whilst this loving description is undoutedly true, I have to admit that back in the day - i.e., the 1970s - I was never a great Bolan fan and when I stomped around the bedroom wearing my sister's platform boots, I was pretending to be a member of Sweet or Slade, not T. Rex. 

 

As was also the case with David Bowie, I was just a little too young - and perhaps a little too straight - to fully appreciate the queer sophisticated pop genius of Bolan and his "gorgeously nonsensical and deliciouly fey lyrics" [2]. 

 

And so, although I remember listening to his songs on the radio and used to love watching him on TV, it was Gary Glitter's poster which hung on my wall and Gary Glitter's singles I used to buy with my pocket money at the local record store. 

Only retrospectively, can I now see that I should've given my heart to this East London boy who, unlike many of his peers, embraced punk rock and was - again unlike many of his peers - embraced by the younger punk generation, as the photos above illustrate [3]. 

 

Whether Bolan genuinely loved the so-called New Wave, or simply wanted to ride along on it as he had once ridden a white swan in order to sustain his own career, I don't know. But I like to think this one-time hippie folk musician who became a glam superstar was more of a punk at heart than many might imagine [4].

 

Sadly, we never really got to find out, because Bolan was killed in a car crash on 16 September, 1977, aged 29.   

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Sebastian Horsley, Dandy in the Underworld, (Sceptre, 2008), pp. 29-30. 

      Horsley borrows the title for his autobiography from the T. Rex single released 30 May 1977 (from the album of the same name released 11 March 1977 on EMI). Click here to enjoy a performance of this song on the children's TV show Get It Together, presented by Roy North (sans Basil Brush).

 

[2] Sebastian Horsley, Dandy in the Underworld, p. 27. 

 

[3] There are also photos of Bolan with the Ramones and Billy Idol - and, speaking of the latter, Generation X performed their debut single, 'Your Generation', on the final episode of Bolan's own TV show Marc (broadcast 28 September 1977): click here.  

[4] This is further evidenced by the fact that he chose the Damned to support him on a short tour in March 1977, which began at City Hall, Newcastle (10/03) and ended at the Locarno, Portsmouth (20/03), where the Damned joined Bolan and T. Rex on stage to perform 'Get It On' as an encore.    

Notes on A Glam-Punk Childhood

20th century boy (c. 1973)

I. 

1977 - the year of punk - may have been of crucial importance in shaping my tastes, attitudes, and ideas, but it certainly wasn't the beginning of my long love affair with pop culture. 

Thus, whilst the first album I ever bought may have been Never Mind the Bollocks, I'd been buying singles since 1971, when Benny Hill released Ernie (the Fastest Milkman in the West), an innuendo-laden comedy song that was the Christmas number one that year and which has remained a much-loved favourite with many of those who remember it, including former prime minister David Cameron.  

The second single I remember spending my pocket money on was Crazy Horses, by the Osmonds, which reached number two in the UK charts in the autumn of 1972 and proved that even clean-living Mormons can rock out. Looking back, it's clear that the song was ahead of its time with its concerns to do with the environment and fume-spewing motor vehicles smoking up the sky. But even back then, I hated cars and knew that - like my father - I never wanted to drive.

It was the following year however - the year of glam - that I really started buying singles on a regular basis; by Slade, by Sweet, and - of course - by Gary Glitter, whom I adored and had a large poster of on my bedroom wall. I spent many, many happy hours stomping around in my older sister's platform boots and singing along to the smash hits released by the above in that golden year of 1973, including: Cum on Feel the Noize, Blockbuster, Ballroom Blitz, Do You Wanna Touch Me, Hello Hello I'm Back Again, I'm the Leader of the Gang (I Am), and I Love You Love Me Love.           

What was it about these artists and their songs that appealed so powerfully to the ten year old child (and, if I'm honest, still appeal even now) ...?


II.

Obviously, the outrageous clothes, make-up and hairstyles caught my eye and I was seduced also by the camp nature of their performance - even if I had no idea then what campness was. But, mostly, it was the music: loud, fast, tribal and ridiculously catchy - making you want to pogo up and down years before Sid Vicious was credited with inventing the dance.

There was also something distinctly British and working class about glam. Perhaps it was the fact that it didn't take itself too seriously; that, like punk, it seemed to be more in the theatrical tradition of music hall and even pantomime, rather than serious rock with its roots in rhythm and blues. It was about dressing up and messing up and having a laugh - not perfecting one's skills as a musician or soulful songwriter.

As "Whispering" Bob Harris sneered after a performance of Jet Boy by the New York Dolls on the Old Grey Whistle Test in November 1973, it was mock rock - sexy, stylish, superficial, and shiny - not something that real music lovers and old hippies such as himself needed to take seriously (the Dolls, of course, formed the bridge between glam and punk - as the fact that they were briefly managed by Malcolm McLaren in 1975, prior to his involvement with the Sex Pistols, perfectly illustrates).


III.

Those cunts who now sneer with politico-moral correctness and a sense of their own cultural superiority at the music, the fashions, the TV, and pretty much every other aspect of life in the 1970s need to be told (or in some cases reminded) that it was more than alright - it was better. 

Or, at any rate, despite all the boredom, blackouts and bullshit of the time, people were happier and I'm pleased to have been born (and to have remained at heart) a 20th century boy.    

All I Want for Christmas ...

All I Want for Christmas Is You

Ever since a young child, I have, as a rule, instinctively felt myself in visceral opposition to that which has mass popular appeal, or solicits universal critical consensus. But there are, thankfully, always exceptions to any rule - even one's own.

And perhaps the loveliest of all exceptions is that slice of immaculate pop magic conjured up by the American singer-songwriter Mariah Carey during the festive season of 1994.

It's not my absolute favourite Xmas song: that would be Christmas Time (Don't Let the Bells End), by The Darkness (2003), for reasons indicated elsewhere on this blog [click here]. And, obviously, I'm also very fond of Slade's Merry Xmas Everybody (1973), showcasing the unique genius of Noddy Holder.

But Mariah's is the best and gives the purest sense of festive joy. She is, as one critic has pointed out, a great philosopher of the human heart:

"Since 1994, the song has sold more than 14 million copies and made a reported $50 million in royalties. And besides making her some sweet seasonal cash, Carey's masterpiece is an incredible feat of philosophical subterfuge. Christmas is a time of material and affection-based excess, yet the song is narrowly focused on just one thing: getting to be with a specific person, e.g., you. It rejects the idea of love in general in favor of love in particular, simultaneously defying and defining pop-music conventions. With infinitely more economy of expression and undoubtedly catchier lyrics, "All I Want for Christmas Is You" is a sort of Hegelian dialectic of Christmastime desire, taking the conflicting notions of abundance and specificity and packaging them neatly into an earworm for the generations."
              

- Emma Green, 'All I Want for Christmas Is You: A Historical Dialectic', The Atlantic (23 Dec 2015).