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The lyricism is very abstract, though the basis of this song is about a girl who goes to watch a movie after an argument with her parents. The film ends with the line "Is there life on Mars?" Bowie has labeled the song "a sensitive young girl's reaction to the media" and added "I think she finds herself disappointed with reality... that although she's living in the doldrums of reality, she's being told that there's a far greater life somewhere, and she's bitterly disappointed that she doesn't have access to it." The lyrics also contain imagery suggesting the futility of man's existence, a topic Bowie used frequently on his early albums. (thanks, Joey - Athens, GA)
Bowie came up with this after he was asked to put English lyrics to a French song called "Comme d'habitude." Paul Anka ultimately bought the rights to the original French song and rewrote it in English as "
My Way," later made famous by Frank Sinatra. "Life On Mars?" uses practically the same chords as "My Way" and the
Hunky Dory linear notes state that the song is "inspired by Frankie."
In 2008, Bowie recalled writing this song to the Mail on Sunday : "This song was so easy. Being young was easy. A really beautiful day in the park, sitting on the steps of the bandstand. 'Sailors bap-bap-bap-bap-baaa-bap.' An anomic (not a 'gnomic') heroine. Middle-class ecstasy. I took a walk to Beckenham High Street to catch a bus to Lewisham to buy shoes and shirts but couldn't get the riff out of my head. Jumped off two stops into the ride and more or less loped back to the house up on Southend Road. Workspace was a big empty room with a chaise lounge; a bargain-price art nouveau screen ('William Morris,' so I told anyone who asked); a huge overflowing freestanding ashtray and a grand piano. Little else. I started working it out on the piano and had the whole lyric and melody finished by late afternoon. Nice. Rick Wakeman [of prog band, Yes] came over a couple of weeks later and embellished the piano part and guitarist Mick Ronson created one of his first and best string parts for this song which now has become something of a fixture in my live shows."
The band Bush used the line, "Mickey Mouse has grown up a cow" as a tribute to Bowie in their song "
Everything Zen."
This was released as a single in 1973, two years after it appeared on Hunky Dory.
The song was recorded in Portuguese by Seu Jorge for the soundtrack of the 2004 film The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou. Anni-Frid Lyngstad, formerly of ABBA, recorded a Swedish version titled "Liv pa Mars?"
If you listen closely to the end of the original recording of this song, you can hear a telephone ringing. (thanks, Paul - Montpellier, France)
The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain often performs this song at live shows. They claim it is a "song about plagiarism" and that it "wasn't our idea." The first verse is played straight as Jonty Bankes sings. As Bankes sings the second verse, George Hinchcliffe sings "My Way" until the bridge ("But the film is a sadd'ning bore") when Peter Brooke-Turner sings lines from "For Once in My Life." Then through the chorus Hester Goodman sings from "
Born Free" while Dave Suich sings The Who's "
Substitute." Watch it
here. (thanks, David - Mesa, AZ)
Mick Rock directed the song's official video. It was filmed backstage at Earls Court in London in 1973. It features Bowie in a turquoise suit and makeup, performing the song against a white backdrop.
The BBC television series,
Life On Mars, was named after this, while its sequel,
Ashes to Ashes, was also named after the Bowie song
of the same name.
Green Day front man, Billie Joe Armstrong, has stated he would like this song to be played at his funeral.
Comments (43):
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The second act extrapolates the same idea onto society as a whole, specifically American society called out by name. The theme of escapism applies to society in general. I can't quite reconcile all the various references cited in the lyrics, but the repetition of the mouse theme is interesting: mousy hair, Mickey Mouse, the mice and their million hordes. Even though the same movie was written 10 times or more, we get a temporary life from the dreary rat race of modern life as soon as the images fill the screen.
And the final line is the same in each act: "Is there life on Mars?" as a cry of desperation... our life here sucks so bad, can we go somewhere else? The theme of escapism from the dreary day-to-day reality reminds me a bit of Lennon/McCartney's "A Day in the Life" insofar as the theme only. The line about "Lenin's on sale again" or "Lennon's on sale again" ... I'm guessing that was deliberately set by David as a pun, that it could be interpreted as either Lenin or Lennon. And for many years after I bought the album I thought he was singing, "There's lemons on sale again."
but the 2nd verse is totally unrelated, with vaguely political but quite obscure lines like "rule britannia is out of bounds to my mother my dog and clowns" that i would challenge any Bowie fan or professor of poetry or political science to explain. again, i love the song, the use of the random imagery and the sound of the words.
i'm a bit envious, too. i could never have written the lovely line" it's about to be writ again" so perfectly the Queen's English, and 70's hip at the same time, because i was raised and educated in america.
policemen everywhere, then and now were always "beating up the wrong guy", a line which again brilliantly plays to the revolutionary anti establishment tastes of the times, but retains that (intended) vagueness, so that , i suppose, the weekend dress-up hipsters of the 70's who would later become the uptight suit wearing money grubbing Thatcherist conformist squares of the 80's would not be put off. Clever lad, Bowie.
"look at those cavemen go" fits with "sailors fighting in the dancehall"(sounds like a headline from a small town paper), but as john pointed out above, consciously or not, Bowie lifted it from another lyric. cut and paste. cheeky, clever, brilliant lad. but almost always a bit removed and ironic, going all the way back to "major tom" and forward to let's dance, agian, both of which i love, but never made me feel sad for the astronaut, nor want to put on blue shoes and dance.
i rest my case.
people read meaning into the lyrics, but i think bowie just had a nice musical riff in his head, and finished the song
with a bunch of random words to fit the music. that said, i love the song. the melody, the singing, the lyrics too, even though they are, like
most of Steely Dan's, intentionally obscure so as to have "universal meaning", "multi-layered imagery" . Anyone can read into the song whatever meaning they
want. The song is (i'm certain) devoid of any real intended meaning.
Please, when I say "simple" I say it in a very positive way. Simple like basic pop, clear and incredible great.
http://www.bbcamerica.com/content/122/index.jsp
Quite an upper!
'Now the workers have struck for fame
'Cause Lennon's on sale again'
refer to Lennon's song 'Working Class Hero' on his 1970 John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band album.
She seeks to escape at the cinema , but finds that the images on screen are a pale reflection of 'real life'
She comes to the idea that her life is as shallow as the films she watchs and life on mars is her life
something that profits of the (not literal) prostitution of children.
to me the whole songs is about the destruction of humanities purity seen through the eyes of a girl ''watching a film'' which is a metaphor for life.
the phrase ''is there life on mars?'' to me sums up the isolation that the girl feels watching these horrors (with ''her friend nowhere to be seen''), looking at humanity not as natures moral pinnacle (thats commonly believed) but, still, as nothing more than ''cavemen.''
james beedie - northampton. uk