#International space station david bowie license

īowie recorded a stripped-down, acoustic version in late 1979, which was issued in February 1980 as the B-side of ' Alabama Song'. It spent two weeks at the top of that chart. 1 single in the UK Singles Chart in November that year. This was then used to support RCA's 1975 UK reissue, which gave Bowie his first No. 15 on the Billboard Chart and became Bowie's first hit single in the United States in Canada, it reached No. Upon its re-release as a single in 1973, the song reached No. Mogol wrote Italian lyrics, and Bowie recorded a new vocal in December 1969, releasing the single ' Ragazzo Solo, Ragazza Sola' ('Lonely Boy, Lonely Girl') in Italy, reportedly to take attention away from covers by the Italian bands Equipe 84 and The Computers. The single was not played by the BBC until after the Apollo 11 crew had safely returned after this slow start, the song reached No. The song was promoted in advertisements for the Stylophone, played by Bowie on the record and heard in the background during the opening verse. The track was recorded at Trident Studios on 20 June 1969 and used the in-house session player on the song Rick Wakeman (mellotron) also of progressive rock band Yes fame, as well as Mick Wayne (guitar), Herbie Flowers (bass), and Terry Cox (drums). Visconti decided to delegate its production to Gus Dudgeon. George Martin turned the project down, while Tony Visconti liked the album demo-tracks, but considered the planned lead-off single, 'Space Oddity', a 'cheap shot' at the impending Space mission. (An even earlier version of the song was recorded on 2 February 1969 for Bowie's promotional film Love You Till Tuesday.) Mercury executives had heard an audition tape that included a demo of 'Space Oddity,' recorded by Bowie and his then musical partner John Hutchinson in March 1969.

German singer Peter Schilling's 1983 hit ' Major Tom (Coming Home)' is written as a retelling of the song.Īfter Bowie's split from record label Deram, his manager, Kenneth Pitt, negotiated a one-album deal (with options for a further one or two albums) with Mercury Records and its UK subsidiary, Philips, in 1969. īowie would later revisit his Major Tom character in the songs ' Ashes to Ashes' and ' Hallo Spaceboy'.

#International space station david bowie license

This video was removed from YouTube on May 13, 2014: despite Bowie's explicit wishes that Hadfield be fully licensed to record the song and produce the video, the song is owned - and its copyright controlled - by Bowie's publisher, who granted Hadfield license to the song for only one year. In 2013, the song gained renewed popularity after it was covered by Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, who performed the song while aboard the International Space Station, and therefore became the first music video shot in space. It was played over the public address system preceding the band's arrival on stage. 'Space Oddity' became so well known that Bowie's second album, originally released as David Bowie in the UK (like his first album), was renamed after the track for its 1972 reissue by RCA Records, and has since become known by this name. The song was awarded the 1969 Ivor Novello Award, together with Peter Sarstedt's ' Where Do You Go To (My Lovely)?'. The song appears on the album David Bowie (also known as Space Oddity). The lyrics have also been seen to lampoon the British space programme. Besides its title, which clearly alludes to the film 2001: A Space Odyssey, the introduction to the song is a barely audible instrumental build-up that is analogous to the deep bass tone in Also Sprach Zarathustra that is prominently used in the film. It is about the launch of Major Tom, a fictional astronaut. Outside / Earthling / Hours / Heathen / RealityĬhristiane F.' Space Oddity' is a song written and performed by David Bowie and released as a music single in July 1969. Space Oddity / The Man Who Sold the Worldįame and Fashion (David Bowie’s All Time Greatest Hits)īowie at the Beeb: The Best of the BBC Radio Sessions 68–72Īll Saints (Collected Instrumentals 1977–1999)Ĭlub Bowie (rare and unreleased 12″ mixes) Prokofiev David Bowie, The Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandyġ.Outside: The Nathan Adler Diaries: A Hyper Cycle The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Marsĭavid Bowie Narrates Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf

David Bowie ( aka “Man of Words / Man of Music” then “Space Oddity”)