New Space For An Old Oddity

Chris Hadfield became a celebrity in the Irish Twittersphere when he sent the first tweet in Irish from space; his photographs of Ireland from his lofty vantage point were also warmly received. Now, however, he has broken more new ground with the release of the first ever extra-terrestrial music video…

Move Over Major Tom

This video is quite the parting shot from Hadfield, who has brought the International Space Station to a whole new audience; in this version of David Bowie’s Space Oddity, he has made a few lyrical tweaks along the way, notably (and understandably) side-stepping any references to potential dead circuits – nothing wrong there…

Those of you expecting a singer-songwriter ballad version may be surprised by the fairly elaborate production; in fact, Chris’ parts were indeed recorded in space, but the rest of the music and production was captured on Earth by Joe Corcoran and Emm Gryner. Chris does certainly seem to have a guitar in space though, which is surprising enough in itself. There are plenty of items of interest in this video, including some very nifty timelapse footage of Earth, and on a personal note, I couldn’t resist reposting the video here, as Space Oddity was the current UK number one on the day I was born…