Starman [Top of the Pops]

(Adapted from the "Rock Commentaries" at mmcdonald77.wordpress.com)

Starman continues the transcendence begun in Moonage Daydream, but suddenly changes to acoustic guitar, changes the pace by shifting the perspective to that of the terrestrial music fan who suddenly comes into contact with the space invaders:

Hey, now, look out low!

I didn’t know what time it was, the lights were low

I leaned back on my radio

Some cat was layin down some rock and roll

Lotta soul he said

Then the loud sound did seem to fade

Came back like a slow voice on a wave of haze

That were no DJ, that was hazy cosmic jive

The contact with the heavenly beings is through the radio, or through this modern music. They may have heard Moonage Daydream!

There’s a starman waiting in the sky

And he’d like to come and meet us,

But he thinks he’d blow our minds.

There’s a starman waiting in the sky

And he’s told us not to blow it,

’cause he knows its all worthwhile.

He told me, let all the children lose it,

Let all the children use it,

Let all the children boogie.

This is how the Gospel message can be presented in pop art, in images that reflect the intelligible on a lower or visible level, as is done by C. S. Lewis, Tolkien, the Arthurian myths, and elsewhere. It is of course central to the Credo that He, Jesus, “will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” In other words, “There’s a starman waiting in the sky / And he’d like to come and meet us / but he thinks he’d blow our minds.” This cannot be presented in popular art directly, as in Jesus Christ Superstar, but it can be presented playfully through the analogy of the images. There is no indication of a savior in “Five Years,” Bowie’s description of the ecological demise of the earth, from a lack of resources. The place of a savior is to be held by the Star Man, who can, and Ziggy who cannot, bear the image.

There is a diabolical imitation of the divine, and a natural imitation, as the soul itself is an image of God. Whether the imitation is right or perverse depends on the logos or the meaning, which can of course only be accessed by reading the image. Here, the poet is not the star man himself, but has heard his new message from the star man first hand. The message is: “Let all the children boogie.”

The story of Ziggy is different from Space Oddity. Here in Ziggy, the spaceman is not an earthling, but one from the stars. In Space Oddity, a terrestrial astronaut is likened to the modern seeker-poet who leaves his fellow humans, and the whole atmosphere, like the rocket man that is Bernie Taupin. Though there is nothing about the star man at all on side II, the intention seems to be that contact with the star man has made Ziggy Stardust a star. There is a curious relation in the story between the starwoman of "Moonage Daydream," the radio and the sounds that break through the Rock and Roll, The starman, the poet, and Ziggy Stardust.

Carl Jung suggests that in the phenomenon of UFOs, we see a myth in the process of formation. UFOs are seen sometimes by more than one person, with both with the eye and on radar, or seen by pilots. Apart from the question of what they are, the phenomenon of the UFO allows for the projection of material from the collective unconscious, much as modern art, by being unintelligible, calls up contents from within. The conscious circumstance of modern man is one of collective distress. Jung (p. 414) writes: “Yet the dominance of science leaves us without a living myth.” "No Christian will contest the importance of a belief like that of the mediator, nor will he deny the consequences which the loss of it entails. So powerful an idea reflects a profound psychic need which does not simply disappear when the expression of it ceases to be valid. What happens to the energy that once kept the idea alive and dominant over the psyche? A political, religious, and social conflict of unprecedented proportions has split the consciousness of our age. When such tremendous opposites split asunder, we may expect with certainty that the need for a savior will make itself felt…between the psychic opposites there is generated a “uniting symbol” at first unconscious…Should something extraordinary or impressive then occur in the outside world, be it a human personality, a thing or an idea, the unconscious content can project itself upon it, thereby investing the projection carrier with numinous or mythical powers. Thanks to its numinosity, the projection carrier has a highly suggestive effect and grows into a savior myth whose basic features have been repeated countless times."

In this circumstance, the unconscious compensates by fulfilling the need for a savior. The secular mind imagines according to the principles of our modern view of the world, and the astonishing unknown objects become the occasion for the imagination, all apart from the question of the truth of the matter.

Bowie understands the general modern phenomenon of the rock star, where, beginning with Sinatra, Elvis and the Beatles, fans literally fall in love, en masse, with the performers, or else want to be them or be like them. Bowie's starman story joins the rock star and space alien in an analogy based on how the poet actually does connect the fan with the intelligible meaning of the higher things.

Ziggy too is especially adapted to the Moonage, when science fiction has been preparing us for decades for things like space travel, which then become realities. In this image, our imagination of the physical outer space expresses our religious imagination. The connection between these two, the visible and the spiritual, is a perennial question. It may be the most common living myth today, in the sense of Jung, as when the collective unconscious is projected outside. Jung took the imagination of UFO’s very seriously, and the myth is literally believed in various forms by many, from evangelical Christians like Jack Van Impe to cults like those in California who committed suicide in expectation of meeting the aliens in this way, to those who believe themselves to have been abducted for various reasons. Given the serious versions of the modern myth, Bowie’s version in art, or play, might be welcome, and many fans were quite taken up by the whole thing. At the same time, there is a serious intelligible teaching presented through the image. This is that we are in circumstance where the end of humanity is possible in various ways, and the music coming through the radio does connect the listeners, through the musician, with an intelligence that is like a starman.

The sounds are generational, like the music, the elders do not understand, approve or join in. The young wait for him:

Look out your window, I can see his light If we can sparkle, he may land tonight Don't tell your papa, or he'll get us locked up in fright

My favorite line on the whole album may be "If we can sparkle..." The glitter of the kids, their little participation in the celestial twinkling, is what may call the starman to earth, when he would not fear that he would blow our minds, because we too are sparkling. In any case, he has told the poet to let the kids lose it, use it, and boogie! And don't blow it, 'cause He knows its all worthwhile.