Life On Mars?
Hunky Dory, 1971
Joe elliott, Def leppard/Down ’n’ outz
“Sorry to be predictable, but I’m not going to be clever-clever and go for something from the Hours album [1999] – it’s got to be Life On Mars?. The history behind that song is so fascinating. Bowie wrote a song called Even A Fool Learns To Love that was set to the music of a song [Comme d’habitude] originally written by a couple of French guys [Claude François and Jacques Revaux]. Paul Anka later rewrote it as Sinatra’s My Way, and Bowie responded with Life On Mars? as his own parody of Frank’s song. Listen to them back to back and the first twenty seconds of each are almost identical. That’s why on the back cover of Hunky Dory it says ‘Life On Mars? – inspired by Frankie’, as in Sinatra. I heard that from the mouths of [Spiders From Mars] Trevor Bolder and Woody Woodmansey.
“Bowie was maybe twenty-one years old when he wrote Life On Mars?, and it was Mick Ronson’s first attempt at a string accompaniment. Both of those statements are beyond unbelievable because
it’s so brilliantly done, so mature and understated. And yet forty-odd years later it still sounds as though it was recorded last week. Rick Wakeman’s piano part is also simply amazing. And I love those great, obscure lyrics, yet at the same time they were completely believable.
“It was a beautifully melodic, well-constructed and great-sounding song. Whenever I hear it on the radio I always think: ‘Good. A few thousand people will be hearing that for the first time.’ Somewhere in the back of a car in Lincolnshire, a kid will say: ‘Mummy, mummy, what’s that song?’ That’s what good music is – it spreads good feelings.”
LENNY KRAVITZ
“Hunky Dory is one of my favourite albums, not only for the writing but also the production by
Ken Scott. That record is such a brilliant document of the era; those amazing, deep songs. And there were none more deep then Life On Mars?, with its surreal words.
“As a teenager I auditioned for Spike Lee’s movie School Daze [1984] by singing that song. Most people were bringing in tapes of a piano backing track that they would sing along to – The Greatest Love Of All [Whitney Houston] was popular at the time. I walked in, no tape, and sang Life On Mars? a cappella. The production crew were all African American and had no clue what that song was about [laughs]. They may have heard Fame, but they didn’t know David Bowie. I’ll never forget the looks on their faces: ‘Who is this crack-head and what is he doing here?’ Of course, I didn’t get the part.”
BENJI WEBBE, SKINDRED
“I still recall being a small boy and the day that song entered my life – Bowie was that gingerhaired, weird-looking guy wearing a blue suit and with those eyes. I’d never seen or heard anything like it before. The tone of his voice stunned me, and the lyrics are so incredible. He conjures up all these wonderful images with his words. And Rick Wakeman is on the piano – what more could you ask for?
“Fast-forward to Blackstar and he did deserve to win all of those awards. It was a brilliant record. They didn’t honour him that way just because he had died.”
DEVON ALLMAN
“I’ve always loved the combination of the orchestration and those otherworldly lyrics. It’s just a really mystical song. It always transports me to the first time I heard it. I bought it on vinyl at the age of around nineteen and I played that thing right into the ground.”
JOHN OTWAY
“I didn’t follow Bowie’s later work anywhere near as avidly as I did the early years, and I was lucky to see him in Aylesbury just as he’d got the Spiders From Mars together and before they really cracked it in terms of success. When I was much younger I always used to play that song. Lyrically and melodically it was so good… I found myself singing it all the time.”
MIKE PORTNOY
“It would be in my top five songs of all time. It’s so perfectly written – just listen to the chord changes and the melody. Bowie had a style that was so unique. The production is also amazing. I love Rick Wakeman’s piano, and when that cello comes in on the first pre-chorus it always gives me goosebumps. I’ve even got those right now from talking about the song.”
CONNY BLOOM, ELECTRIC BOYS
“As a piece of music, that one is on a level with Paul McCartney working with [producer] George Martin. It’s like they [The Beatles] wrote it and he [Martin] produced it. It’s so good. And it’s just one of the many all-time greats written by Bowie.”
“Bowie was maybe twenty-one years old when he wrote Life On Mars?, and it was Mick ronson’s first attempt at a string accompaniment. That’s beyond unbelievable.”
Joe Elliott