Don’t Forget the Songs-365: Mach Dos Day 48
Sun. Feb 26, 2012
Life on Mars
David Bowie
1971
“♫ is there life on Mars? […] ♫”
Did you know that” Life on Mars” was Bowie was attempting to rewrite Sinatra’s version of Paul Anka’s “My Way?” According to Nicholas Pegg’s essential The Complete Bowie, D.B. began composing the lyrics. He got off the bus walked home, and sat behind the piano and finished the song.
I always imagined a scene in Central Park—an alien just arriving on earth in NYC, overhearing conversations of people walking, movies playing on laptops, Ipads and miniature phones, ears listening to Bowie’s “Life on Mars” as the soundtrack of a living and breathing motion picture. The lyrics are so twisted and strange—pure Bowie. The string arrangement was one of Mick Ronson’s most memorable.
Here’s the majestic—a definite Bowie classic—I bring you, the wondrous—Life on Mars.
And one of my favorite live versions with Arcade Fire on Fashion Rocks circa 2005.