MUSIC VIDEO NARRATIVEDAVID BOWIE

SPACE ODDITY(1969&1972)

Bowie wrote this after seeing the 1968 Stanley Kubrick movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. "Space Oddity" is a play on the phrase "Space Odyssey," and the title does not appear in the lyrics. The song tells the story of Major Tom, a fictional astronaut who cuts off communication with Earth and floats into space.

LOVE YOU TILL TUESDAY 1969 FILMLove you till Tuesday was a small promotional film produced to advertise David Bowie, directed by Malcolm J Thompson. For the film nine separate music videos were made featuring four tracks from his debut album and additional compositions. The filming was finished in February 1969 however failed to interest an audience, partly due to the content of some of the videos, and also because Bowie’s success was not yet at it’s height. The film was released in May 1984, due to Bowie’s growing success and the success of home video. A compilation soundtrack was released at the same time.

The DVD was released in 2005.

The music video for Space Oddity(1969) presents the early version of the track and is a very early version of a music video.

SPACE ODDITY (1969)FACTS“The song was awarded the 1969 Ivor Novello Award, together with Peter Sarstedt's "Where Do You Go To (My Lovely)?".It was Bowie's first UK Top 5 hit. "Space Oddity" became so well known that Bowie's second album, originally released as David Bowie in the UK (like his first album), was renamed after the track for its 1972 reissue by RCA Records, and became known by this name. Upon rerelease in 1975, the song was Bowie's first UK No. 1 single.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Oddity)

The original music video for Space Oddity features Bowie performing the song and as an astronaut/’Major Tom’. The mixture of performance narrative and the visual link to the lyrics is a conventional feature of music videos. As this is a very early version of what we see as music videos, it presents the basic conventions in order to fulfill the criteria of a music video-to sell the artist/their brand, although still reflects elements of the time period. Such conventions were used by bands such as The Monkees, their 1967 music video for ‘I’m a Believer’ features a performance from the band in order to promote their music.

"In England, it was always presumed that it was written about the space landing, because it kind of came to prominence around the same time. But it actually wasn't. It was written because of going to see the film 2001, which I found amazing. I was out of my gourd anyway, I was very stoned when I went to see it, several times, and it was really a revelation to me. It got the song flowing. It was picked up by the British television, and used as the background music for the landing itself. I'm sure they really weren't listening to the lyric at all (laughs). It wasn't a pleasant thing to juxtapose against a moon landing. Of course, I was overjoyed that they did. Obviously, some BBC official said, 'Oh, right then, that space song, Major Tom, blah blah blah, that'll be great.' 'Um, but he gets stranded in space, sir.' Nobody had the heart to tell the producer that.” (Bowie on Space Oddity)

SPACE ODDITY(1969) EDITING/MISE-EN-SCENE

NARRATIVEThe editing used in the 1969 video is unusual in terms of a conventional performance music video. Firstly clips of the artist are placed overlapping one-another, in a fish eye type effect creating a surreal atmosphere that perhaps reflects the surreal nature of the lyrics and possibly the time period of which it was recorded. Aside from the obvious link to wider society, being the moon landing in July 1969, the same month as the release of the track, links to the change in society could also be argued for. The 60s held huge premise for experimentation in terms of both sound and lyrics, the vast and rapid changes in society lead to the beginning of new music and it may be argued this video reflects that through it’s unconventional editing and mise-en-scene. As mentioned before however this music video stuck to a fairly minimal visual in terms of performance as its priority was to promote the artist. The mise-en-scene of the video is very minimal, the use of silver, white and black creating a simplistic yet effective portrayal of the lyrics of life on a space station, the narrative of the video cuts between the performance of the song. Linking to Goodwin’s argument for the connection of lyrics and visuals, in this video the visuals heavily emphasise the lyrics re-telling the story created in the track.

Aspects of this experimentation may also be reflected in the use of colour correction at the end of the video, the colour change from silvers and whites to all red and then all blue may be a reflection of the early ‘progressive rock’/psychedelic folk genre of music of the period and an idea of the direction that Bowie was moving along with many other artists.

SPACE ODDITY (1972)FACTS“In December 1972, Mick Rock shot a music video of Bowie performing the song during the sessions for Aladdin Sane, which was used to promote the January 1973 United States reissue on RCA.”(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Oddity)

The original album was re-released under the title ‘Space Oddity’ after Bowie’s success with singles such as ‘Changes’ and ‘The Jean Genie’.

The second music video released for Space Oddity still features Bowie’s performance of the song(typical of the period-with music videos such as Mott the Hoople’s ‘all the young dudes’) however this time there is no clear reference to the lyrics, as in the 1969 video, instead the use of lighting, digital technology and editing reflect the lyrics.

“Before recording for the album commenced at Trident Studios, the song "Space Oddity" had been selected as the lead single based on an earlier demo.[5] Visconti saw it as a "novelty record" and passed the production responsibility for the song on to Gus Dudgeon. However, Visconti produced all the remaining songs on the album. Tim Renwick, John 'Honk' Lodge, Mick Wayne and John Cambridge – all from the band 'Junior's Eyes' – featured on the album sessions and briefly served as Bowie's backing band for live appearances and on an October 1969 BBC Radio session.”

“Although the opening song had given Bowie a No. 5 hit in the UK earlier in the year, the remainder of the material bore little resemblance to it and the album was a commercial failure on its initial release, despite some decent reviews. However the November 1972 reissue, released in the wake of Bowie's breakthrough The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars and featuring a contemporary Ziggy photo on the cover, made No. 17 in the UK charts and No. 16 in the United States.”

SPACE ODDITY (1972)MISE-EN-SCENENARRATIVE

The 1972 video for Space Oddity reflects the same unusual editing of the original video, with overlapping clips of Bowie and videos of sound waves/technology such as the digital countdown. This video however reflects Bowie’s music style much more than the first, the use of a more 'glam-rock’ mise-en-scene creates something that the audience can easily associate with the typical Bowie style.

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The narrative of the music video is reflective of the lyrics in terms of the arguably futuristic lighting and set used, however it does not explicitly reference the lyrics in the same way that the 1969 video does. The set features a studio-type background with shots of technology used in a recording studio, this may have been used both because the video has a performance narrative but also could reflect the futuristic technology the lyrics mention “your circuits dead” etc. The purple, red and blue lighting used could reflect the initial ideas of the original music video, the ending is edited to change to blue and then red, this may have been referenced as a nod to the early progressive rock genre. These colours may also have been used as a promotional aspect, Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust is associated with blues and reds and, as the music video has a performance narrative, Bowie’s image needed to be clear in order to sell the record and appeal to his audience.

SPACE ODDITY(1972) EDITING/CAMERAWORK

NARRATIVEThe editing in the 1972 video reflects the narrative of the lyrics, the use of overlapping of clips creates an usual effect that reflects both the lyrics and the genre of the track. The lyric “This is ground control to Major Tom”(1.21) is accompanied by a shot of Bowie overlapping the equipment in the studio. This may suggest the two people in the narrative, ground control being the technology and Major Tom being Bowie. The overlapping edit connects the two as the lyric describes their conversation. This is idea is followed by a shot of Bowie’s eyes as he sings “This is Major Tom to Ground control”, shortly followed by another clip of the studio. The overlapping of the sound waves and Bowie also reflect the technology/real person overlap.

The narrative is also reflected through the shot of the studio at 1.48, the clip is sped up and has the effect of a handheld camera. The lyric that overlaps this “floating in a most peculiar way”, the use of the handheld camera and highly sped up effect emphasises the confusion in the lyric and creates something unusual that reflects the genre of the piece, Bowie’s rock/glam style(matches performance videos of him at the time such as the video for ‘Starman’) and other music videos of the period.