A post from Red Line:

As many of you are aware of songs like “Space Oddity” or “Major Tom”, how many of you would figure out that Major Tom is a missing person? We obviously know as listeners of David Bowie, and Peter Schilling, that Major Tom was an astronaut that disappeared in space. Yet like most people over the years… how did he actually disappear? My guess would be as good as anyone else’s prediction, yet let’s be honest with this story. Major Tom was obviously on a mission for the Americans or Soviets at the time. Yet there is one problem though, there is nothing about nationality in both “Space Oddity” and “Major Tom”.

            Major Tom, as we know it, is a man without a country. Unlike most people in these songs; we honestly don’t know what happened to them. Why not imagine that Major Tom was returning to orbit, yet somehow he found a time lapse. (A time lapse is like the nexus from the Star Trek: Generations film.) Inside the time lapse he could have anything he could want, yet realize that what he was in isn’t the reality he used to have.

Let’s suppose that he is trying to escape the time lapse. Yet every time he tries to break the chain, it’s more years of captivity. If Major Tom finally breaks the chain, he will have realized that what appeared to be days for him, was about twenty to twenty five years our time. Slowly he’ll realize that his wife was either still waiting for him, or had passed away from a broken heart. Normally, if someone was trapped in a time lapse and made it back to Earth… things would be really different for them.

My question for you guys is this: How would Major Tom react to what he is seeing of Present day? Will he A: be shocked B: Curious C:  Sad or D: All the above?

Bowie got the name 'Major Tom' by twisting around the name of a circus performer called Tom Major, which he saw on a poster wen he was a boy. This 'Tom Major' was, unbelievable as it may seem, the father of future British Prime Minister John Major!
So, if Major Tom is not happy with the current state of Britain, it's partly his fault for the way he brought up his son!

Thats an interesting Version to the song.....

My account was only for fictional purposes..... but your account of the Major Tom idea was quite interesting.

A lot of songs are not what they appear to be about.

After recently learning what the song "Bananas in Pyjamas" is really about, for example, I want to cover my kids' ears whenever we hear it.

I always felt that the song "Space Oddity" was about isolation. Others have thought that it is about fame.

I just wanted to add a trekkie feel to the Major Tom situation....

http://xms.songmeanings.net/m/song/13035/

Interesting interpretations here. Mostly dumb, but interesting.

One says that it was about the movie "Space Odyssey". Eeeeep, wrong answer - Bowie wrote it intending it to be the theme song FOR the movie. But of course it was not chosen. Bowie was pissed off, similar to Cyndi Lauper who wrote the hit song "Goonies" for the movie of the same name, only to have it rejected as well.

Apollo 13 theory is also wrong, as the song was released prior to that space flight.

Interesting how Major Tom popped up years later in the song "Ashes to Ashes". It seems to imply, in retrospect, that Major Tom was a drug addict. Perhaps Bowie was commenting on his own life?

It could be that... or the fact that he didn't get noticed right away.... or the fact that he did painting, acting, and singing.....

Okay, though I'd better check if the story about Space Oddity being written as the theme for Kubrick's film was true. It wasn't.

BUT I did find out that it was Kubrick who set up and filmed the fake moon landings. Of course NASA still deny this. But hey, even Kubrick couldn't fake the stars, could he?

Out of all the people that says the moon landing was fake, you happen to be one of them?

You're saying it was real?

So how come the flag was flapping in the breeze?

How come there were no stars in the sky?

And all the rest of the evidence?

Yep... you're one of them

Did you ever see the movie Capricorn One?

They took the idea of faking space exploration a step further.

I don't think I heard of it..... most stuff I hear about is either advertised, reviewed, or reccomended.....

No doubt I've seen a lot more old movies than you have. For the obvious reason.

You probably have....

Have you seen Kurosawa's High and Low?

or Chris Marker's La Jetee (The Pier)

or The Manchurian Canidate (The originial one) [The new one does not count]