Sailors Fighting in the Dance Hall

The first David Bowie album I bought was Hunky Dory. I'd heard Changes on WNEW out of New York City from my dorm room in Fairfield Connecticut, and the combination of Bowie's ability to write a catchy tune, his unconventional voice and the stuttering warning of the changes to come captured my imagination. The album artwork, from Bowie's androgynous front cover portrait, to the handwritten notes on the reverse side sealed the deal. It played over and over again on my Radio Shack turntable. I was particularly taken by a dramatic, soaring song about being lost in the cinema, something I was prone to doing during my college years. That song, Life On Mars, became a favorite. This morning, I went down the Life on Mars rabbit hole, discovering that it was inspired by David Bowie's assignment to write lyrics for a French hit (Comme d'habitude) that would later become My Way, a huge hit for Frank Sinatra in a late-career comeback. Bowie's lyrics were not used. Paul Anka won that assignment. Life On Mars became Bowie's attempt to write a song as anthemic as My Way (the first few chords are apparently the same). He wrote the song after a visit to America, and over the years, it became a crowd-pleasing anthem of his own. One learns, in the dark of the rabbit hole, that Rick Wakeman, who would find his own success with Yes, play piano on the song, and if you listen carefully, there's a ringing phone as the song fades because there was a payphone on the other side of the wall from the drum kit. The curses of the drummer who thought the take was spoiled were not salvage. Here's a demo of the song I found in the warren.