Talk:Major Tom

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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


Contents

[edit] Drug Reference

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

[edit] 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.

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)