How Frank Sinatra and a French Ballad Inspired This David Bowie Classic

In the late 1960s, a young David Bowie, hoping to land a cut as an aspiring songwriter, wrote English lyrics for a French song called “Comme d’habitude”. But Bowie’s pitch was rejected. The label instead chose Paul Anka’s adaptation, which became the Frank Sinatra standard, “My Way”.

Bowie’s version is called “Even A Fool Learns To Love”, but he’d eventually transform the song, and his image, into an art-rock touchstone.

“Life On Mars?”

Following the edgy rock and roll of The Man Who Sold The World, Bowie shape-shifted his musical form into piano-oriented art-pop. He reworked “Even A Fool Learns To Love”, and in its cosmic iteration, “Life On Mars?”, Bowie describes a bored girl who wonders what else, if anything, is out there.

The song appears on Bowie’s 1971 album, Hunky Dory.

It’s a god-awful small affair,
To the girl with the mousy hair.
But her mummy is yelling, “No!”
And her daddy has told her to go.
But her friend is nowhere to be seen,
Now she walks through her sunken dream.
To the seat with the clearest view,
And she’s hooked to the silver screen.

After convincing her parents to let her go to the movies, she’s deeply bored by the film and sees the banality of her own life in its plot. This is Bowie looking for something larger, more expansive, which is something like the point of his entire life’s project.

But the film is a saddening bore,
For she’s lived it ten times or more.
She could spit in the eyes of fools,
As they ask her to focus on.

A New Standard

Bowie’s voice soars like Sinatra’s. And though “Life On Mars?” may be too experimental for a repertoire of standards, it remains a pivotal moment in the life of one of the world’s most transformative artists.

But his ambitions were never tethered to earth. Bowie always seemed to have his eyes on the stars. He combined genres like folk, psychedelia, dance hall, and rock and roll. When Bowie looked up, he zoomed out. How else was he to find Ziggy Stardust?

Sailors fighting in the dance hall,
Oh man, look at those cavemen go.
It’s the freakiest show.
Take a look at the lawman,
Beating up the wrong guy.
Oh man, wonder if he’ll ever know.
He’s in the best-selling show,
Is there life on Mars?

Photo by Earl Leaf/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images