Decoding Bowie...
 

I love most of what I've heard of David Bowie...I consider him something of a creative genius when it comes to writing and performing his own, hm...incomparable style of music.

So I got into the show "Life on Mars" a while back, and made me felt like grabbing some Bowie stuff of course being the song that lent its title to the series.
So, life on mars.
Kind of a bit of a chilling sound to it, but I love it...and is that a cello?
Thing is, I'm not really sure what to make of the lyrics, I mean I know Bowie is pretty "out there", but yeah...

MY thoughts are (and I could be completely incorrect here) that it's a story about a young girl who lives in an abusive situation and "drowns it out" by becoming withdrawn, using the tv/movies as a bit of an escape hatch of sorts, then after a while, a little older and wiser becoming disillusioned with the whole world she's thrown herself into, finding that it's not all it's cracked up to be (eg - the line about the disney corporation) but yeah...I kind of lose it half way into verse 2 though.

That's my partial assessment...so, what's the deal with this song, aside from being an awesome, strange piece of music?
Anyone have a take on it?

I'm a huge David Bowie fan and Life on Mars is definitely one of my favorites.

I always thought it was about the myth of escapism.

Never thought that deeply about it

fixed it for ya ;)

Sharp as a tack :cool:

Escapism and disillusionment, seems quite right to me.

That's what I managed to take from it. The girl doesn't enjoy her reality so she looks for it in the media and when she wishes she could live the lives of the people she sees. The line about "I Wrote it ten times or more, it's about to be writ again, as I ask her to focus on sailors fighting in the dance floor..." seems to be from the the point of her dad, or another person in her life who is about to abuse her once more and yet again she has to look to the media to try and forget the hardships in her life.

Do you think the movie Labrinth was influenced by this song?

Nope. It could've fit quite nicely on the soundtrack tho for sure.