"Space Oddity" is a song written and recorded by David Bowie. It was first released as a 7-inch single on 11 July 1969. It was also the opening track of his second studio album, David Bowie.
It became one of Bowie's signature songs and one of four of his songs to be included in The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.
Inspired by Stanley Kubrick's film 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), the song is about the launch of Major Tom, a fictional astronaut, and was released during a period of great interest in space flight.
The United States' Apollo 11 mission would launch five days later and would become the first manned moon landing another five days after that.
The lyrics have also been seen to lampoon the British space programme, which was and still is an unmanned project. Bowie would later revisit his Major Tom character in the songs "Ashes to Ashes", "Hallo Spaceboy" and possibly the music video for "Blackstar".
"Space Oddity" was David Bowie's first single to chart in the UK. It reached the top five on its initial release and received the 1970 Ivor Novello Special Award for Originality.
His second album, originally released as David Bowie in the UK, was renamed after the track for its 1972 re-release by RCA Records and became known by this name. In 1975, upon re-release as part of a maxi-single, the song became Bowie's first UK No. 1 single.
In 2013, the song gained renewed popularity following its recording 44 years after Bowie by Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, who performed the song (with slightly revised lyrics) while aboard the International Space Station, and therefore became the first music video shot in space.
In January 2016, the song re-entered singles charts around the world following Bowie's death, which included becoming Bowie's first single to top the French Singles Chart.
The song also ranked as third on iTunes on 12 January 2016.