When I was a kid, I was introduced to that tragic space traveller, Major Tom. Oh, not the David Bowie one. No, I was completely unfamiliar with Bowie's "Space Oddity" (it's one of my all-time faves now) and it would be years before I would ever hear "Ashes to ashes" wherein Bowie uses the wayward astronaut as a metaphor for his struggle with heroin addiction.
No, I'm talking about "Major Tom:Coming Home" by Peter Schilling. This beautiful little piece of early 80's synth-pop has an eerie feel that haunted me for years.
There's been a very good cover of it recently by Shiny Toy Guns, but I still prefer the original. Funny thing is, I tried to download it on iTunes and could only get it in Swedish.
Here, from youtube, is the English version, the way I heard it all those years ago, playing Space Command on the Atari 400 at my friend Dave's house. Enjoy.
2 comments:
Wow ... you could only find it in Swedish? That's odd, since the original is in German, and the English version was pretty popular at the time, too.
Anyway, Dealership also did a pretty good cover (http://www.dealerkids.com/mp3s.asp) - more stripped-down garage sound rather than synthy. (Although I do still really like the original - being a teen through the 1980s, I don't have the aversion to the "New Wave" sound that a lot of people who grew up in the 1970s or 1990s seem to have developed.)
~Cheers!
Every time I see this album cover, that yellow diagonal in the upper left makes me think it's an old D&D book.
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