Lyrics for Life on Mars? as interpreted by numb

Life on Mars? Lyrics
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
Because Lennon's on sale again
See the mice in their million hordes
From Ibeza to the Norfolk Broads
Rule Britannia is out of bounds
To my mother, my dog, and clowns
But the film is a saddening bore
Because 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?

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rainbow8711
05-01-2002

Rated 0 
this is one of my favourite songs please could someone tell me what it means as i'm confused. thank you so much

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2 Replies
gandalfe
05-02-2002

Rated 0 
As far as I've ever figured, it's about escapism . . . .

But it is one of the best songs in the history of songwriting.

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rainbow8711
05-03-2002

Rated 0 
thanks for your thoughts... i had a thought last night as i was listening to this (on repeat!) the lines "for she's lived it 10 times before" and "lennons on sale again" maybe it's about someone finally being allowed to go out into the big wide world and expecting it to all be really cool and interesting but she's done it all before... the chorus is a mystery to me

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Justine
05-23-2002

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This was inspired by Frank Sinatra... that's probably where all the 'sailors fighting in the dance hall' and 'best-selling show' stuff comes from

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3ssence
06-08-2002

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actually i always believed (and still think it to be true) that the lyrics are reflecting the decaying american culture and the little person being swallowed in it.

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BenDon2000
06-09-2002

Rated +1 
Hunky Dory was the first Bowie album I purchased over two years ago. It is still one of my favourite. I got the Cd for changes but I love it because of Life On Mars? and The Bewley Brothers. I alos heard it was inspired by Sinatra but who knows the meaning?


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harlanlovestone
07-25-2002

Rated +1 
Ok heres a wild analysis. i believe this song is about a young girl from a disfunctional home who escapes her life through movies. Let's call her "mickey mouse". So in teh second verse Mickey has grown up and become a frumpy old made and she's a blue collar worker, her life is crap and not even the films she took solice in calm her but she still contiues to watch them wishing she lived in a world , any world, including mars, where two men would fight over her in a dance hall.

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Emanual200
07-30-2002

Rated 0 
David Bowie's awesome..but he's weird. Do you really think this makes sense to anyone? It's probably not meant to

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georgy
08-06-2002

Rated 0 
The question "Is there life on mars?" is, I think, like saying "Is this the best we can do? Help! Stop the world I want to get off!" I think he wrote it as a stream of consciousness. maybe not...

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rainbow8711
09-27-2002

Rated 0 
i swear it should have been "Lenin's on sale again"- especially "the workers have struck for fame" -the Proletariat Revolution.....and the references to Mickey Mouse being corrupt and growing up "a cow"......maybe it's just me!

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djingle django
04-27-2003

Rated 0 
Rainbow8711 - You've caught a pun there. The same pun shows up in Don McLean's American Pie ("Lenin/Lennon read a book on Marx"). Lenin was one of the major players in the rise of Marxism as a philosophy in Russia, and John Lennon was enchanted with the work of Karl Marx, as well.

So Lenin and Lennon in a sense become two faces of the same coin. One a political figure in Russia, one a popular English figure. Both proponents of Marxist ideals. The irony of Lennon, however, is that he was in many ways a commercial, capitalistic figure. The name can be seen as connecting both figures in one. Lennon is commercial, so when he speaks of the same ideas as Lenin he puts them on sale - he commercializes socialism.

Of course, David Bowie was known at the time for being very deliberately hard to understand. So I might have that all balled up there.

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Karl
05-10-2003

Rated 0 
This is a brilliant song with such a good music video aswell. Come to think of it, the video is the same as in The Matrix where Morpheus shows or tries to explain to Neo what The Matrix is.

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UnluCKY
06-25-2003

Rated 0 
maybe its about a girl who likes movies,
the chorus would be a description of a movie, where sailors fight or a cop beats someone.

Then again it could be about how life is just a movie.

i would love to know what this song really means.

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vrai
05-11-2004

Rated 0 
i guess i see something different than everyone else in this song. i think it might be a little bit about how much movies sometimes just mirror real life ("But the film is a saddening bore
For she's lived it ten times or more", "But the film is a saddening bore
'Cause I wrote it ten times or more", and the chorus sounds like good elements of a movie... or things that happen regularly in real life) and how its monotonous, but people are really too over-fascinated by them. "Is there life on Mars?" Such a deeper thought, is like an after thought thrown in to mock little petty movies and peoples extreme enthusiasm over them. I might be taking shots in the dark, though :P

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WolfTickets
06-20-2004

Rated +1 
First, I'm pretty sure the "workers have struck for fame/cos Lennon's on sale again line" is a slight jab at John Lennon, because a bit before Hunky Dory came out, Lennon put out his first real solo album, which included the proletariat-anthem "Working Class Hero", so Bowie's joking that, since Lennon is back, there's going to be a revolution.
As far as the song as a whole, I tend to see it as a commentary on the blurring of the line between art and real life: the girl has lived the movie, Bowie has written what is happening to him, Lennon's working class song will cause a working class revolution, etc, and i think the "Is there life on Mars?" line means, you know, we've made so many movies and TV shows and songs about aliens, so are they as real as the other things we write and talk and sing about?

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madlune
06-22-2004

Rated 0 
I believe it simply has to do with the wonders of the imagination. This song isn't supposed to make sense - it's about things that couldn't happen.

Let's start at the beginning. To a child, the imagination and a dream is every day life. But to an adult, the imagination isn't real. So the girl and her invisible friend ("But her friend is nowhere to be seen") goes off to dream on her own. The television is a bore because it's all the same...reruns, identical plots lines, etc.

Then the chorus? The adventures the girl goes through in her own mind - her own television program.

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Imposter
06-26-2004

Rated 0 
I've always figured it was about a girl at the movies just trying to escape from a judgemental world. I can see how Bowie would relate to that. Or he wrote the song not knowing what it was going to be about. Just because he wrote it doesn't mean that he knows what it's about.

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Stamehad
09-20-2004

Rated 0 
I always thought this song is about being bored and feeling as if the world has nothing to offer.

"But the film is a saddening bore
For she's lived it ten times or more"

And so, she wonders about different, interesting planets.

"Is there life on Mars?"

That's for the first part of the song.

I never quite figured out the second verse. Unlike the first, it is written in first person (Duh). The speaker seems to be criticizing the modern world, he dislikes the way everything keeps recycling itself. Worst of all, he’s part of that machine. Perhaps he’s the one who made the film the girl had watched.

“"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
..."”

Bowie creates a connection between the consumer and the producer, revealing they are just tools with no way to escape. they could only dream of a better life.


ah
I might be way-way-way off

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_mia_
01-10-2005

Rated 0 
I thought the beginning part was about a girl who is thrown out of her house by her father going to the cinema to escape reality but finding no refuge in it.

As to the second bit...I don't have a clue.

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thisisfalse
01-11-2005

Rated 0 
This song is on the soundtrack for the Life Aquatic and I feel that it fits perfectly with the theme of the movie. There is a definate correlation between a lot of the characters in the movie and what they are running from/towards etc. Not only do the lyrics fit with the movie the sound of the song really fall in line with the fantastical nature of the movie. It's a great song that fits an equally great movie.

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ieatseeds
02-22-2005

Rated 0 
life aquatic ressurrected this song and hunky dory for me

love it! love it! god, david bowie's video is like amazing

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doubletap
03-09-2005

Rated 0 
I see this as being jaded, desensitized and bored with life/the current way of life and things going on around and in it. Is there life on Mars? Meaning - is there something better/different out there.

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Lixa
03-12-2005

Rated 0 
When I heard this on holiday (I heard most of these songs on holiday) I thought, "What is he on drugs?" because it sounds weird saying for is there life on mars, "Rule britania is out of bounds to my mother my dog and clowns" and also "Mickey Mouse has grown up a cow" so i think he might have been on drugs.

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AllAboutThoseWords
03-20-2005

Rated 0 
i guess this song is about getting away. maybe thats just what i want it to about.

its still one of the best song to ever be written.
i still agree with the drugs tho

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placebist
04-04-2005

Rated 0 
One of my favourites, too. But unfortunately I also don't know what it is about, though having thought really hard about it...

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