David Bowie: Space Oddity Meaning

Song Released: 1969

Space Oddity Lyrics

Ground control to major tom
Ground control to major tom
Take your protein pills and put your helmet on

Ground control to major tom
Commencing countdown, engines on
Check ignition and may gods love be with you

Ten, nine, eight, seven,...

1. Righteous

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   Aug 16th 2008 !⃝

   This song is a fictional about an astronaut(Major Tom) who is leaving into space. as he is in space he takes some drugs and does a space walk right abouve the earth and as he sees it, he is thinking so deeply he starts drifting away without even noticing. as he drifts away he finally realizes he is going to die and tells ground control to tell his wife that he loves her. groung control loses contact with him and he drifts away.
   
   in the song ashes to ashes though, ground control gets back in contact with major tom but they had given up looking for him. He tells them he has made many friends and that he is having fun(he is going insane), but ground control decide that he is a junkie and they leave him stranded to figure things out for himself.
   
   -ty
2. anonymous

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   Aug 7th 2008 !⃝

   This song is all about the American governments oppression on the minority groups. Bowie is commenting on the injustice of this through, ground control being the voice of authority and Major Tom being the American government. The repetition of "ground control to Major Tom" is the call of authority and truth to the American government to do what is right.

   This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
3. anonymous

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   Jun 23rd 2008 !⃝

   Yes definitely about Heroin but also about his own journey of becoming famous I think. Much like the track "Lisa and Danny" by system of a down, I think it's just a lyrical painting showing his strange flight through fame, but all the while living in a world of drugs and half-consciousness.
4. anonymous

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   Feb 26th 2008 !⃝

   The song is about heroine, not about a guy who goes into space...
5. anonymous

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   Dec 5th 2007 !⃝

   This song was written years before it was a hit. Everyone was writing songs about spacemen. Rocket Man etc.. A lot of people think this song is about drug use but I disagree.
6. anonymous

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   Nov 14th 2007 !⃝

   This song from my view is about this. This song was recorded during the height of the space race. And supposedly it's about the death of a Russian cosmonaut (redundant?) possibly during a space walk, (more likely, if not solely relying on Mr. Bowie's speculation, during reentry) on the one manned Vostock space series. I'm might be incorrect about Vostock being the one manned series but who cares the other series were just modified first series. Very unsafe since they put three men into a space craft only meant for two people. And the only reason the craft is a a two man craft is because they modified the one man craft. But off topic.
7. anonymous

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   Nov 5th 2007 !⃝

   This is actually a song about someone getting high on drugs and then overdosing. At first he's feeling good, "floating." But then they loose him because he overdoses; which is why they are saying "Can you hear me Major Tom, Can you hear me Major Tom?" This could be his friends or paramedics.
8. anonymous

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   Oct 18th 2007 !⃝

   This is a song about Major Tom. Who, in the future, goes on a rocket to space and, while on a space walk,is cut loose from the ship and floats away into space and dies.

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