“Sheer metaphor”: why do musical innovators love space so much?
“David ain’t from here,” said Nina Simone, whose confusion about the singer’s talent once led her to believe she had no other option than to brand him a product of space. David Bowie might have been the forerunner in the world’s fascination with space and extra-terrestrial life, but he was far from the first to ignite such intrigue about the music industry’s unrelenting fixation with science fiction.
“Don’t be afraid of the man in the moon because it’s only me,” Bowie sang in ‘Love You Till Tuesday’, a song that would grace his discography two years before ‘Space Oddity’, the musical canon and a concept that would become synonymous with the blurred lines between fiction and reality. In Bowie’s case, space was both a manifestation of escapism and the perfect backdrop for many of his characterisations.
A less explored connotation is that space evokes political thinking by definition of its scientific makeup: Ziggy Stardust, at the time, was a strange, bisexual alien entity whose differences were to be celebrated because he wasn’t a native of Earth. Oddities among Earthlings weren’t something to celebrate or embrace, but Bowie’s characters earned a free pass because they defied easy categorisation.
On the more spiritual note, space also became a scapegoat for all of the things you couldn’t always get away with as a human rock star. As Bowie became more intertwined with the personalities he so delicately constructed, intrigue in his artistry soared because “otherness” becomes more digestible when it’s far, far away. We enjoy spectacles when they don’t threaten convention, even when that’s exactly what they set out to do.
Space is a longstanding theme among many innovative musicians, especially those who contributed to the music scene during pivotal moments in the space race and other significant historical advancements. Duran Duran, Gary Newman, Pink Floyd, Björk, Brian Eno, and many more fancied themselves a space-inspired dream at one point or another, for reasons that usually vary from a fascination with the unknown to a passion for the convergence of music, the human condition, and scientific exploration.
Bowie was unique when you consider how much of a pioneer he was in this area. Space was a metaphor for isolation, potentially even the redundancy of movements like 1960s counterculture. However, he also became a significant part of authentic science fiction movements, with his songs soundtracking some of the most important events in history. Did Bowie kickstart pop culture’s interest in space, or did the space race mean that solar exploration was thrust into pop culture?
For others, by comparison, space represents escapism in multifaceted ways, whether that connects with wider societal issues and topics or provides a metaphor for mental health and the yearning for freedom. When Neil Armstrong landed on the moon in 1969, it didn’t just achieve “one giant leap for mankind”, it also provided a pop culture explosion that built upon the earlier curiosities of musicians who regarded space as the ultimate journey of exploration.
‘Space Oddity’ may have become a significant propeller of such a momentous cultural rupture, but the artists that followed suit conceptualised space as an aesthetic and textual theme to up the ante on showmanship and the idea that great music comes from somewhere unknown to everybody except the artist.
Musically, space-themed compositions become more complicated when you attempt to relate the songs’ contents to the otherworldly themes they represent, and oftentimes, it’s the innovators within the rock space who take more liberties in their presentation of such themes. The Beatles, for instance, blended psychedelia with intergalactic themes when writing ‘Across The Universe’ as a means of exploring Transcendental Meditation and the pursuit of a higher state of being.
Similarly, Elton John’s ‘Rocket Man’ represented the alienation that comes with leaving your family for long periods of time to embark on a job away from Earth. John’s creation is based on a story by Ray Bradbury, which tells the tale of a child whose father leaves to join a mission in outer space, a narrative that also influenced folk group Pearls Before Swine, whose song ‘Rocket Man’ was written about a child who can no longer look at the stars after his astronaut father leaves for a job.
Many songs explore the theme of loss in relation to space, seeking to capture the poignancy of inexplicable human attachment. What’s particularly interesting is how space provides a blank canvas for the vast expanse of imagination. Chris de Burgh, for instance, penned ‘A Spaceman Came Travelling’ when it looked like his music career was reaching its fateful end.
Getting lost in the science fiction world of Chariots of the Gods? by Erich von Däniken, Burgh started to explore the convergence between religion and science, all while an omnipotent entity watched above, observing the various antics that humanity gets up to. Using a nativity scene as his backdrop, the song became an exploration of a craft that halted “in the sky like a star”. Brian May did a similar thing when composing Queen’s ’39’, opting for fantasy over reality as a door to daydreaming.
Brian Eno might just be the ultimate connoisseur when it comes to space-themed music, having composed the score for For All Mankind. But his views on the subject as a whole are considerably revealing when you take into account the many reasons why artists may view space as the quintessential muse, considering the fact that it’s completely out of reach. “Space is silent. It’s a vacuum,” he explained. “In fact, we can’t really experience space directly at all: even those few humans who’ve been out there have done so inside precarious cocoons.”
Continuing, he explained the appeal of space in relation to musical creativity and poetic lyricism. “We’ve become used to translating our feelings and understandings about space into metaphors, mental playgrounds where we’re allowed to imagine how it could be,” he said. Concluding: “That process of imagining is unanchored to experience, unconfined by any demand other than it be in some way true to our feelings. Making music about space, then, is sheer fantasy, or perhaps sheer metaphor.”
In essence, it’s a blank canvas on which to project humanity in any way that the artist pleases, but it’s the most startling evocative blank canvas of all when it comes to aesthetic and scope. Space can be what you want it to be as a songwriter, but it will never be boring.
