Talk:Major Tom

Misplaced comments
in regards to :  "Major Tom also appears in "Major Tom" by the American rock band I Hate Kate, which appeared on their CD "Embrace The Curse."  "    This is a cover of Schilling's song, not an original song mentioning Major Tom. 65.78.48.54 (talk) 04:20, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

Are there any secondary critical sources that talk about this? It's a shame to lose good analysis if it's based on sources, but we can't have original research here. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 20:01, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

How about "Hallo Spaceboy" PSB remix?

"... Ground to Major, bye bye Tom (this chaos is killing me) Dead the circuit, countdown's wrong (this chaos is killing me) Planet earth, is control on (so sleepy now) Do you wanna be free, don't you wanna be free Do you like girls or boys, it's confusing these days But moondust will cover you, cover you ..."

Seems there are link to Major Tom again. You can hear those words in video version of the song.

/Borissa

Drug Reference
There are two things that intrigue me when talking about this song.

Autobiography
David Bowie often creates autobiographical songs and characters. I wonder if this song does not do exactly this. Peculiarly, the original name of the album was David Bowie (respectively in the US as "Man of Words/Man of Music".

This should be a strong hint to David Bowie himself as Major Tom.

Drugs
David Bowie experienced with drugs during that period. Many words in the text have some meaning related to drugs.

I wish only to point out one word not described previously: tin. A new form of heroin ingestion spread out through the world during the late '60s. Users inhaled the vapors of heroin which resulted when the drug was heated - typically on tin-foil above a flame. To quote: For here Am I sitting in a tin can could be related to heroin. The time was right, although I do not know if David Bowie experimented with that form of heroin intake.

As a side note, I looked up through various databases IF Major Tom is a slang for heroin. Despite some opinions suggesting this, I could not find any direct evidence for this (in over 1,500 slang words). However ALL these slang databases are of recent origin. It would be useful to have such information from the '60s. -- Discoleo 20:25, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

i find it curious that he's not talking to "flight control". "ground control" only controls flight vehicles in their movements on the ground. Perhaps his 'tin can' is on the ground. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.79.154.82 (talk) 18:03, 15 January 2009 (UTC)


 * That is not correct. "Ground Control" is merely a synonym of Mission Control, which controls spacecraft (in space) but is located on the ground.  Captain Quirk (talk) 02:38, 6 July 2016 (UTC)

another drug reference?
One of the most obvious references to "Major Tom" being a drug - quite possibly heroin - is this last line in "Ashes to Ashes":

My mother said to get things done You'd better not mess with Major Tom

BullyInNY 01:26, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Tom Major-Ball
What about Tom Major-Ball the circus peformer (and father of John Major)? I've seen his name given as a possible origin of the name "Major Tom". Totnesmartin (talk) 21:46, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

This is an urban myth but I would have thought it worthy of inclusion given how widespread it is. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.30.225.174 (talk) 18:24, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Where does Bowie get Major Tom from?
Major Tom was a common expression in the 60s - a quintessential Brit. For example, the great English cyclist Tom Simpson was called Major Tom at times. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pkel015 (talk • contribs) 10:14, 8 November 2008 (UTC)
 * Very good point that, that I think brings everything together. "Major Tom" was name on everyone's lips for a quintessentially British who addmittled openly to using drugs, and died shortly before (I presume) DB wrote this song in 1967 while using drugs (dehydration was more to blame but the amphetamines made the news). Taken together with the other references in Ashes to Ashes etc. Major Tom, and flying into space, may be drug taking especially considering the fact that DB uses it as a metaphor for that meaning in an interview "David Bowie on Drugs" (YT video). Major Tom Simpson may have even looked a bit like DB.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/23666168@N04/22088825144 I think that "Major Tom" was a lot more than a junkie. --Timtak (talk) 04:59, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

What about Air Force Major T. J. "King" Kong in Dr. Strangelove? Was his name Tom? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.134.177.42 (talk) 22:11, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

I would say that Major tom is a reference General Tomas P Stafford. Stafford was a General at the time of his Apollo 10 mission which was launched just a few months after this song was released in February 1969. L3X1 (talk) 16:20, 30 December 2016 (UTC)

Lincoln MKZ cover
In reference to "A cover of "Major Tom (Coming Home)" in a commercial for the 2010 Lincoln MKZ is preformed by Chiasm."

Is there evidence to substantiate this claim? The only similarity between the commercial and Chiasm's cover in New Wave Undercover is that they're both techno sung by women. Different languages and key signatures notwithstanding, the techno styles are completely different. Also, there seems to be no reference to the MKZ cover either in Emileigh Rohm's website or Facebook account. One might think the artist would be the first to toot her own horn. Mikeyz3 (talk) 08:17, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Orphaned references in Major Tom
I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Major Tom's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "Bowie: An Illustrated Record": From Station to Station: Carr & Murray (1981): pp. 78–80. From Low (album): Roy Carr & Charles Shaar Murray (1981). Bowie: An Illustrated Record: pp.87-90 From Lodger (album): Roy Carr & Charles Shaar Murray (1981). Bowie: An Illustrated Record: pp.102-107 From The Man Who Sold the World (album): Roy Carr & Charles Shaar Murray (1981). Bowie: An Illustrated Record: pp.37-38 From Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps): Roy Carr & Charles Shaar Murray (1981). Bowie: An Illustrated Record: pp.108-114 From Space Oddity (album): Roy Carr & Charles Shaar Murray (1981). Bowie: An Illustrated Record: pp.28-29 From Santa Monica '72: Roy Carr & Charles Shaar Murray (1981). Bowie: An Illustrated Record: p.116 From Ashes to Ashes (David Bowie song): Roy Carr & Charles Shaar Murray (1981). Bowie: An Illustrated Record: pp.109-116</li> <li>From "Heroes": </li> <li>From David Bowie (album): Roy Carr & Charles Shaar Murray (1981). Bowie: An Illustrated Record: pp.21-25</li> </ul>

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT ⚡ 04:53, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

Did he die?
Maybe a stupid question, but is Major Tom dead?
 * No, he was transformed into a Spaceboy. According to Planet P Project, he's due back in 2010... Kramden (talk)

Sigh
That I found an article on Major Tom on a lark is why I love Wikipedia. 4...3...2...1... -- >David  Shankbone  02:41, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

The songs section needs to be divided
Currently the "Songs" section provides a continuous narrative of Major Tom based in all the song's he's appeared in. However, we should separate Bowie's songs from those by Schilling and the rest, and discuss them (or relate the plot) separately. The reason being is that Bowie's songs are the only official usage of the character. He created him, and the character is a reflection of the Bowie's narrative, work, and life. Every one else's interpretation has nothing to do with this. Yes, we can state how they continued the narrative, but as they are just other artists reacting to the character we can't treat it as equal to the original artists intentions. It's like in a summary of the "Wizard of Oz" series, if I treat the book "Wicked" as canon. It's not, it's a later interpretation.24.190.34.219 (talk) 02:01, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

I have cleaned up the "Songs" and "Covers" sections by putting each of them in chronological order. This helps the continuity a lot. I also (more consistantly) lumped together chronologically in one paragraph all the songs that are only marginally related to this subject. The problem that would be created by trying to divide the songs up between different composers is that there are so many offshoots and collaborations of varying relatedness. In fact, many of the secondary composers' songs have substantially more to do with Major Tom than Bowie's own 2 "sequels". And it is really Peter Schilling's work that turned this character into a franchise. To me, the chronological approach makes much more sense under the circumstances. Ramseyman (talk) 14:03, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Song should be added?
I'm not entirely sure if this song should be added or not, specifically A Letter to Michelle by The Cog is Dead. It's clearly a steampunk version of Major Tom, but by the same token, it's not in fact the same Major Tom... So.169.233.49.119 (talk) 07:25, 1 June 2010 (UTC)

Elton's "Rocket Man" succeeded "Major Tom" and therefore COULD be referencing Major Tom
From the introductory section:
 * "Due to some similarities in Elton John's "Rocket Man", some presume this song might also be an allusion to Major Tom...[this is not possible because] "Rocket Man" was released by Elton John in 1972 [3] while "Space Oddity" was released in 1969."

This doesn't make sense. If Elton John's song was recorded 3 years after Bowie's, it certainly could be referencing Major Tom. Fp cassini (talk) 20:41, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

I just came across this article and was also confused by this. Time for some WP:BOLD action! 69.11.56.159 (talk) 19:02, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

Tom Simpson
A biography of Tom Simpson says that his nickname was Major Tom - is this anything more than a coincidence? I don't think our dave had much nterest in Sport, but Simpson made headlines when he died, and was a notorious drug user. 80.74.16.198 (talk) (user:totnesmartin at work) 13:31, 29 July 2011 (UTC)
 * I think that this was not a conincidence. Major Tom Simpson was very famous sports personality, and drug user, in 60s UK and may have even looked a bit like DB. In that sense perhaps, Space Oddity may have been in part a requiem. I don't think that DB was married at the lime but TS was.--Timtak (talk) 05:14, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

Chris Hadfield
What about Chris Hadfield's version sung from the International Space Station? Surely that has to be the ultimate cover version!

Good point, although difficult to work into this article. There's a good summary of that in the Music section of the Chris Hadfield article. Ramseyman (talk) 04:40, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Possibly about 'horse'
The documentary Inside Bowie And The Spiders 1969-1974 released on 2-DVD in 2004, has a booklet with song for song information inside. On Space Oddity it says: Its deceptively simple lyric has been widely interpreted as a metaphor for heroin use, the lift-off effect provided by Junior's Eyes guitarist Mick Wayne, representing the rush associated with the drug.

Well, talked yesterday with a couple of experienced people, if you know what I mean. They said the following: Only shooting horse gives the full orgasmic rush effect. If smoking it on tin foil the effect is still very, very powerful but won't take you to the highest peak. Snorting lies in between the other two routes when it comes to effect. That mean that the song possibly is about snorting or shooting, and not smoking.

Bjarnulf, Oslo — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.213.30.97 (talk) 22:37, 10 May 2015 (UTC)