Life On Mars?

Is there? Life on Mars? Is there meaning to this song? Does it matter?

Personally, I’d answer ‘don’t know’, ‘definitely’ and ‘possibly’

There are songs we’ve listened to hundreds or even thousands of times in our lives, either allowing them to mean what we want them to mean or never even asking ourselves what they might mean. Because they just

sound

so

great.

So one interpretation of David Bowie’s Life On Mars goes something like this: There’s this girl, rejected by her parents, let down by her friends and who can’t even find any kind of escape and meaning to her life in films. But there’s hope, because if all else fails, maybe, just maybe, there’s an answer. On Mars.

I think that’s

so

damn

beautiful.

Read the lyrics, listen to the song and take what you want from it. And if you learn a bit more English from it, then so much the better.

«It’s a God-awful small affair
To the girl with the mousy hair
But her mummy is yelling, «No»
And her daddy has told her to go

But her friend is nowhere to be seen
Now she walks through her sunken dream
To the seat with the clearest view
And she’s hooked to the silver screen

But the film is a saddening bore
For she’s lived it ten times or more
She could spit in the eyes of fools
As they ask her to focus on

Sailors fighting in the dance hall
Oh man, look at those cavemen go
It’s the freakiest show
Take a look at the lawman
Beating up the wrong guy
Oh man, wonder if he’ll ever know
He’s in the best selling show
Is there life on Mars?

It’s on America’s tortured brow
That Mickey Mouse has grown up a cow
Now the workers have struck for fame
‘Cause Lennon’s on sale again
See the mice in their million hordes
From Ibiza to the Norfolk Broads
Rule Britannia is out of bounds
To my mother, my dog, and clowns
But the film is a saddening bore
‘Cause I wrote it ten times or more
It’s about to be writ again
As I ask you to focus on

Sailors fighting in the dance hall
Oh man, look at those cavemen go
It’s the freakiest show
Take a look at the lawman
Beating up the wrong guy
Oh man, wonder if he’ll ever know
He’s in the best selling show
Is there life on Mars?»