We should all learn from those who are (much) more aware than we are. How to write a song that isn’t just a list of clichés: it talks about Major Tom, astronaut and the solitary pioneer of the space race, alone like Yuri Gagarin. You begin the song with the voice of ground control. Use the countdown as an integral part of the song that prepares a visionary instrumental interlude, dividing the song in two and symbolizing the launch of the spacecraft. Ground control congratulates for the success, cuts to a commercial break, and orders Major Tom to leave the capsule. You hear from Major Tom only after one minute and fifty-three seconds; the first two lines are obvious, the whole world is listening to you and expects a hero’s speech, but then something happens to you, the music becomes quieter and more reflective as you communicate that you feel overwhelmed by a sense of total helplessness and insignificance. You decide to let yourself drift. You have one last loving thought for your wife. Then you turn off the radio and disappear into space and mystery.

From space, you return as Ziggy Stardust. You shoot this video years later, when you've already decided to kill Ziggy and do nothing to hide your annoyance toward your own creations. Ziggy will never return. But in 1980, in "Ashes To Ashes," you reveal the fate of Major Tom: he’s alive, he’s old, he’s trapped in space, and he’s a junkie. He is your portrait of Dorian Gray, which you let drift into the void when you freed yourself from your addictions in the late seventies.

Major Tom appears one last time: like a skull in an astronaut’s space suit in the "Blackstar" video. He’s on an alien planet, adorned with jewels, and is the object of a magical cult, while the rest of the skeleton still floats in space. Major Tom is dead, and his death announces yours, coming just a few days later. You began writing this cycle when you were twenty-two years old and finished it on the very day of your death. #umbertopalazzo David Bowie – Space Oddity (Official Video)