Loneliness In 'Space Oddity And Life On Mars'

Loneliness is a constant companion to David Bowie’s music, appearing as a theme in many songs and albums. However, the presentation and form of this loneliness takes many, often wildly different, forms. I have decided to focus on two songs which each present a very different take on loneliness. “Space Oddity” presents the indefinite loneliness of being physically alone and separated, while “Life on Mars” presents the lonely cry of disillusionment with modern society. “Space Oddity” is perhaps Bowie’s most famous song about loneliness. While this song can be interpreted as being about drugs, I am taking a more literal interpretation of the lyrics: Major Tom, lost forever, in space. The feeling of loneliness first arises from the sounds of

This is the loneliness of disillusionment with the world. This is best seen in the way the song presents like a movie. The movie-like nature of the song first comes through in the sound of the song. It starts off with quiet piano and a simple narrative. Throughout the song, more instruments, most notably strings, are added and the sound gets grander and faster, rising most at the chorus. The very end of the song also seems to imitate the instrumental outro of an old-school action movie, with a grand strings exit. On the lyrical side, we are presented with a narrative of a girl with “mousy hair”. From that line alone we get a picture of an average girl, unremarkable and normal. From the line “she walks through her sunken dream” we immediately get a sense of disillusionment. Her life is like a dream, but not the good kind. It is repetitive and boring, not really going anywhere. She cannot even get relief from the “silver screen” as even that is repetitive: “But the film is a saddening bore/For she’s lived it ten times or more”. The media she is forced to consume is all the same tropes over and over again. This is echoed in the chorus, which presents these tropes in a repetitive, almost mocking fashion. This gives us a sense of the loneliness of not only this girl, but youth who may feel disillusioned with the world left to them by the last generation. Life is boring and the media, made for them to consume to escape it, is being repackaged and remarketed and resold to them over and over