David Bowie sings 'Space Oddity'. This song is one of Bowie's signature songs and was first a single and this album version was on his 1969 Mercury (also Philips and later RCA) album 'David Bowie'. The song was inspired by the then current space programs and the 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey. The lyrics are in the video and below with comments about the song.

Note: For the opening rocket launch 55 seconds of the song's ending music were repeated at the video start and 20 seconds of relative silence at the song start was left out so this video has a time of about 5:45 minutes instead of the nominal song time of 5:15. The images in the video that were timed and modified to fit the song are video animations by Tunnel motions, Mikke House, CGI Animation of Space, Pressmaster, and Pixabay on Pexels.com. I hope all the activity in space in the past month or so makes this song video relevant.

[CD/Lyrics/10-Videos]

Space Oddity (Singer: David Bowie)

Ground Control to Major Tom

Ground Control to Major Tom

Take your protein pills and put your helmet on
Ground Control to Major Tom (Ten, nine, eight, seven, six)

Commencing countdown, engines on (Five, four, three, two)
Check ignition and may God's love be with you (Two, one, liftoff)

This is Ground Control to Major Tom
You've really made the grade
And the papers want to know whose shirts you wear
Now it's time to leave the capsule if you dare

This is Major Tom to Ground Control
I'm stepping through the door
And I'm floating in the most peculiar way
And the stars look very different today

For here am I sitting in my tin can
Far above the world
Planet Earth is blue
And there's nothing I can do

Though I'm past one hundred thousand miles
I'm feeling very still
And I think my spaceship knows which way to go
Tell my wife I love her very much, she knows

Ground Control to Major Tom
Your circuit's dead, there's something wrong
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
Can you hear?

And I'm floating around my tin can
Far above the Moon
Planet Earth is blue
And there's nothing I can do

Songwriter: David Bowie
[Lyrics from Musixmatch]

Wikipedia states:

"Space Oddity" is a song written and recorded by English singer-songwriter David Bowie. It was first released as a 7-inch single on 11 July 1969 before appearing as the opening track of his second studio album, David Bowie. It became one of Bowie's signature songs and one of four of his songs to be included in The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.

Inspired by Stanley Kubrick's film 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), with a title that plays on the film's title, the song is about the launch into space of Major Tom, a fictional astronaut, and was released during a period of great interest in space flight. The United States' Apollo 11 mission would launch five days later and would become the first manned Moon landing another five days after that. The lyrics have also been seen to lampoon the British space programme, which was, and still is, an unmanned project. Bowie revisited his Major Tom character in the 1980 lead-single "Ashes to Ashes" from Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps) and the 1995 single "Hallo Spaceboy" from Outside, the third and final single released from that album. In addition, Major Tom possibly influenced the music video for "Blackstar", released in 2015 off of Bowie's final album of the same name.

"Space Oddity" was Bowie's first single to chart in the UK. It reached the top five on its initial release and received the 1970 Ivor Novello Special Award for Originality. His self-titled second album was renamed after the track for its 1972 rerelease by RCA Records and became known by this name. In 1975, upon rerelease as part of a maxi-single, the song became Bowie's first UK No. 1 single.

In 2013, the song gained renewed popularity following its recording 44 years after Bowie by Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, who performed the song (with slightly revised lyrics) while aboard the International Space Station, and therefore became the first music video shot in space. In January 2016, the song reentered singles charts around the world following Bowie's death, which included becoming Bowie's first single to top the French Singles Chart.

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