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Space Oddity is what critics often regard as the first 'true' Bowie album. It's where he found his own sound, and started mapping out his trajectory of the decades to follow. No wonder the album sounds like it straddles two eras. First released in 1969, reissued in 1972, but making its biggest impact in 1975 when the title single reached number 1 on the UK charts, the record sounds like it doesn't really belong in any of those years.
Some of the songs already sound outdated in 1969: the hippie paean of "Memory of a Free Festival" belongs to an era before the Summer of Love turned to autumn. And the title track itself – well, it's the single that launched his career into space, and gave us a preview of the extraterrestrial experimentation that was to take place in his Ziggy Stardust persona.
Teetering on the brink of the Space Race and the Cold War, released at the time of the Apollo 11 moon landings, and foreshadowing electronic sounds in pop music, "Space Oddity" was a song ahead of its time, and floated above the music of the day. Suitably future-y sounds were supplied by a Stylophone, a miniature synthesizer, to accompany Bowie’s automaton intonation. Bookended by these two songs out of time, the rest of the album pulls together a collection of heartfelt, folksy pieces that show just why Bowie became a household name.
I was pretty much unaware of Bowie’s musical stature when I first picked up this album. I must have been 12 at the time, and my local CNA was having a clearance sale. Along with a couple of flavour-of-the-moment-past-their-prime records (Fine Young Cannibals, Men Without Hats – both of which I wish I still had) I found a white cassette tape with an androgynous David Bowie on the cover, marked down to R12,95. And so my education in serious music began.
They say you never forget your first time. Well, I can certainly remember every note of the first album to blow my mind. I wore that magnetic tape through, patched it with sticky tape, and started all over again – and there’s not a bad song in the batch. There's the dirty harmonica-strewn "Unwashed and Somewhat Slightly Dazed" – evoking Muddy Waters and Dylan – that first dipped my ears into the deep and troubled rivers of blues.
There's a plain and simple love song, "Letter to Hermione", from which I cribbed lyrics for my early romantic missives ("I'm not quite sure what I’m supposed to do/So I'll just write some love to you…") There's the almost 10-minute epic of "Cygnet Committee", which taught me that songs in no way have to make sense and, in the spirit of the Beat poets, can even benefit from a derangement of imagery. And then there's the naked emotion of "Wild Eyed Boy From Freecloud", a narrative story about being punished for yearning for freedom. Every time I hear Bowie’s voice tremble and crack in the final line, my heart breaks a little for that boy from Freecloud.
But it's when we finish up the album with the two-part opus of "Memory of a Free Festival" that Bowie solidifies his status as one of the greatest songwriters of his day. While it is a celebration of the Flower Power era, it is already fading in memory – as if realizing that the Revolution did not, in fact, change the world, and the children of the Love Generation would finally come of age amidst the sleazy glam-rock of the 70s. As the final line puts it, in a "Hey Jude"-like chorus: "The Sun Machine is coming down and we're gonna have a party...."
Transformation, loss of innocence. Connection and disconnection. The themes explored by an artist reaching maturity, in an era of music changing, to a boy whose horizons were expanding, made for a musical experience that changed my perspective for good. Major Tom would have understood:
"I'm stepping through the door
And I'm floating in a most peculiar way
And the stars look very different today...."
- Finn Gregory
Some of the songs already sound outdated in 1969: the hippie paean of "Memory of a Free Festival" belongs to an era before the Summer of Love turned to autumn. And the title track itself – well, it's the single that launched his career into space, and gave us a preview of the extraterrestrial experimentation that was to take place in his Ziggy Stardust persona.
Teetering on the brink of the Space Race and the Cold War, released at the time of the Apollo 11 moon landings, and foreshadowing electronic sounds in pop music, "Space Oddity" was a song ahead of its time, and floated above the music of the day. Suitably future-y sounds were supplied by a Stylophone, a miniature synthesizer, to accompany Bowie’s automaton intonation. Bookended by these two songs out of time, the rest of the album pulls together a collection of heartfelt, folksy pieces that show just why Bowie became a household name.I was pretty much unaware of Bowie’s musical stature when I first picked up this album. I must have been 12 at the time, and my local CNA was having a clearance sale. Along with a couple of flavour-of-the-moment-past-their-prime records (Fine Young Cannibals, Men Without Hats – both of which I wish I still had) I found a white cassette tape with an androgynous David Bowie on the cover, marked down to R12,95. And so my education in serious music began.
They say you never forget your first time. Well, I can certainly remember every note of the first album to blow my mind. I wore that magnetic tape through, patched it with sticky tape, and started all over again – and there’s not a bad song in the batch. There's the dirty harmonica-strewn "Unwashed and Somewhat Slightly Dazed" – evoking Muddy Waters and Dylan – that first dipped my ears into the deep and troubled rivers of blues. There's a plain and simple love song, "Letter to Hermione", from which I cribbed lyrics for my early romantic missives ("I'm not quite sure what I’m supposed to do/So I'll just write some love to you…") There's the almost 10-minute epic of "Cygnet Committee", which taught me that songs in no way have to make sense and, in the spirit of the Beat poets, can even benefit from a derangement of imagery. And then there's the naked emotion of "Wild Eyed Boy From Freecloud", a narrative story about being punished for yearning for freedom. Every time I hear Bowie’s voice tremble and crack in the final line, my heart breaks a little for that boy from Freecloud.
But it's when we finish up the album with the two-part opus of "Memory of a Free Festival" that Bowie solidifies his status as one of the greatest songwriters of his day. While it is a celebration of the Flower Power era, it is already fading in memory – as if realizing that the Revolution did not, in fact, change the world, and the children of the Love Generation would finally come of age amidst the sleazy glam-rock of the 70s. As the final line puts it, in a "Hey Jude"-like chorus: "The Sun Machine is coming down and we're gonna have a party...."Transformation, loss of innocence. Connection and disconnection. The themes explored by an artist reaching maturity, in an era of music changing, to a boy whose horizons were expanding, made for a musical experience that changed my perspective for good. Major Tom would have understood:
"I'm stepping through the door
And I'm floating in a most peculiar way
And the stars look very different today...."
- Finn Gregory
