Going off on a tangent, so bear with me. I've been a member of an online group for over 20 years. One of the music threads I participated in was centered around music/CD swaps. For one round, I decided to make a 'Concept Album' based off of the premise of David Bowie's 1969 single, "Space Oddity," wherein our main character essentially becomes Lost In Space, and Peter Schilling's 1982 New Wave nugget, "Major Tom (Coming Home)," as the bookends. In between I'd tell the story of Major Tom's travels.
So it's a mix tape with a theme. Some of the song choices to fill out the story were easy, some I had to extensively scrounge through my iTunes library, introducing the character of Major Tom's wife so that I could tell her side of the story. The booklet was also a lot fun to design.
From my liner notes, the tale goes something like this:
...The Ballad of Major Tom...
In early 1969, Major Tom embarked on a simple, routine orbital mission out of our Earth atmosphere to conduct additional tests on weightlessness and spacesuit design before the upcoming Apollo moon landing, slated for July of that same year.
Something went wrong. Major Tom disappeared from our monitors, scanners, and Earth.
Major Tom’s wife, now abandoned on earth, grieves for her missing husband, while the Major finds himself transported to the other side of the galaxy through some strange electromagnetic flux, which literally tore a hole in the space-time continuum, to be finally deposited into orbit above a reddish, earth-like planet orbiting a small, hot, white star.
The Major takes his ship down to the surface of the red planet and begins, what could be, a long, lonely existence. At first, he explores his new home with an adventurer’s excitement and curiosity. But as the days and weeks play out, fear, loneliness, and a longing for his wife fill his nights and dreams - just as 2000 light years away, she still looks to the sky and dreams of him.
The Apollo 11 project continues on schedule, and Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins are moon-bound. But back on Major Tom’s planet, Tom notices his small, hot, white sun getting smaller over a series of days. Alarmed that something catastrophic may be happening, he preps his ship, launches back into orbit, and heads away from the sun with his limited, remaining fuel. The sun continues to collapse in on itself, finally imploding and becoming a black hole. All light and matter, including Major Tom’s ship, are sucked into the darkness.
Through what can only be called ‘balance’ or ‘karma,’ Major Tom is transported back to our solar system and deposited into orbit above the moon, where he crash lands in the Sea of Tranquility. He’s surprised to find he’s landed at the Apollo 11 site where Neil and Buzz are completing their mission. Changes have happened to Major Tom. He’s not ‘of this world’ anymore due to the distances and dimensions he’s travelled. In a surprising move, he takes over the Lunar Module, contacts his wife to make peace, says he’s coming home - but where is home now?
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The Song List:
Space Oddity - David Bowie
World Without You - Beth Hart
Under The Milky Way - The Church
New Planet - Medeski, Martin & Wood
2000 Light Years From Home - The Rolling Stones
Red Dust - Zero 7
This Big Hush - Shriekback
Marooned - Pink Floyd
Miss You Fever - Delbert McClinton
Stars All Seem To Weep - Beth Orton
Apollo - Alan Parsons
Stars Die - Porcupine Tree
Blackhole - Martyrs in Disguise
Walking On The Moon - The Police
Phonecall From The Moon - Adrian Belew
Major Tom (Coming Home) - Peter Schilling
The Digital Booklet:
