So the way I read it, Bowie tries "wrapping up the seventies" by bringing back his most impossibly lost character, and revealing that the intervening 11 years have treated him in the same way as they have Bowie himself. And finally, by concluding Major Tom's story, Bowie is left renewed, without the drugs, musical, and physical baggage of 11 years of musicianship. In an almost Dorian Gray-esque way, Major Tom is now suffering the addiction and debilitation while Bowie himself can now start again. By presenting Major Tom as a "junkie, strung out on heaven's high, hitting an all time low" (note the title of Low in that line, another bit of self-reflexivity), Bowie also creates an analogue for his old career, as well. And what better fate for Major Tom to ultimately suffer, than the same that Bowie suffered throughout the 70s himself? And here is where the drugs come in. Now to finally end the first half of his career for good there is only one thing left to do: destroy major Tom for good, so the "impossible" can not be ever done again. Bowie even mentions this fact in the first line, making sure to ask "do you remember the guy.?"Īnd so Bowie has done the impossible and brought his first ever character back from space and back into our minds. And what is more impossible than to bring back that eternally lost in space character, Major Tom? Bowie could have just as easily brought Ziggy Stardust back to life, or given the Thin White Duke a genuine soul, but there's another layer in making mention of Major Tom: being from Bowie's first ever hit, 11 years before, Major Tom had not only been lost in the story, but forgotten in time itself by Bowie's audience.
The most effective way to create a sharp dichotomy between Bowie's pre and post 80s material in one song is to do what was considered the impossible in his old songs. It's meant to mean that we're waving goodbye to the "action man" of the start of the song. Obviously, "ashes to ashes, dust to dust" is part of the Anglican Christian funeral service, and the pun with "funk" means we're attending the funeral of Bowie as a musician, not a person.
This is sharply contrasted with the chorus, "Ashes to ashes, funk to funky". The self-reflexivity of the song from the very beginning mean we're looking at the song as being about Bowie writing about himself. I think to see that meaning, the central parts you need to look at are, well, first the beginning - "do you remember a guy/in such an early song", which from the start sets the meaning as looking back to Bowie's early career. So it's a dirge, really, for all of Bowie's career up to 1980, and a look forward to his (then hopeful) career from then on in. There's a lot of references towards drugs, to be sure, but I think that's intended more as a backdrop for the lyrics than the meaning itself.īowie has said this song was primarily about "wrapping up the seventies really for myself. I think saying the song's about drugs is certainly selling it short a little bit, in the same way saying Space Oddity is about a fella in a rocket isn't giving that justice, either. Jesus, guys, I'd expect this from the Linkin Park pages but this is one song that desperately needs reading closely to find any meaning. Wow, so few people have made any attempt at looking at the meaning of the song. I never did anything out of the blue, woh-o-oh I never done bad things (I never done bad things) I never done good things (I never done good things) The shrieking of nothing is killing, justĪin't got no money and I ain't got no hairīut I'm hoping to kick but the planet it's glowingīut the little green wheels are following me Ashes' lyrics were done by cAnON instead of Benjamin and mpi. Also like NEXUS, both songs use a female vocalist to balance out genders. This goes along with the song's placements. Thyma at the Burnish hideout in Lio-henĪs explained by Sawano in an interview with Natalie, the song acts as a theme for Lio's despair similar to NEXUS.
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