“Space Oddity” by David Bowie

"Space Oddity" came out as a 7-inch single on 11 July 1969, rushed into the shops to ride the Apollo 11 Moon landing, and that November it opened David Bowie's second album, David Bowie. It's the tale of Major Tom, an astronaut of Bowie's own invention, drawn partly from the film 2001: A Space Odyssey and partly from the loneliness Bowie felt about where his career stood.

Gus Dudgeon produced it at Trident Studios in London, and the arrangement is a small wonder, a long way from the music-hall whimsy of Bowie's debut. Bowie strums a 12-string and plays the wheezing little Stylophone, Paul Buckmaster, who arranged it with him, adds cello, Rick Wakeman lays down Mellotron, and Herbie Flowers, Terry Cox and Mick Wayne fill in bass, drums and electric guitar as the song drifts from folk hush into cosmic swirl.

The BBC played it under its moon-landing coverage, yet it sold slowly before climbing to number five in Britain. Bowie never let Major Tom go: RCA put the song out again, breaking him in America in 1972 and then, in 1975, handing him a British chart-topper at last, and he brought the character back in "Ashes to Ashes" in 1980.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.