#davidbowie #lifeonmars #myway
In this episode of #thedailydoug, I’m publishing a Behind the Score video I originally published on my Patreon platform. I explored the similarities, differences, and connections between David Bowie’s classic Life on Mars? and Frank Sinatra’s equally classi My Way. Both of these songs are based on the same source material, and I find the back story of these songs’ creation stories fascinating. Come along for the ride!
Reference Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7DfQMPmJRI
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What a great band Bowie had in those days. Mark Ronson, Rick Wakeman. I know that the focus was on the composition, but I would have loved to hear Doug's take on the performances
The verses for both songs are very similar, but Bowie takes things to an entirely different level with the pre chorus and chorus on his. Neither are bad, just different.
Excellent contrast of the two songs. Sinatra was of my parent's generation so of course my preferences lie towards the more questioning Bowie version – Hunky Dory being one of my all time favourite albums.
please do Pink Floyd's album The Wall
Have you done reviews of Allan Holdsworth, Jean Luc-Ponty, Shawn Lane, Frank Gambale, OHM, Brand X, Mahavishnu Orchestra or King Crimson yet?
David Bowie made an arrangement before Paul Anka brought Claude françois album to the US. it probably happened in a very tight time difference, but the song is from Claude François/Jacque Revaux which was written to honorate its previous relation with France Gall.
rick wakeman maybe know anything about the life on mars because he played piano on it
Life on Mars? One of my all time favorites. I am so used to the older version, the 2016 version does not sound right to me.
There's a SpaceX video commemorating sending the Tesla to (near) Mars with "Starman" in the driver's seat that uses this song. The video shows the crowds that came to watch, including excited kids, the excitement of the launch teams, and highlights from the launch and return of the boosters.
It was done two years after Bowie's death, but that still felt kind of raw. It's one of the most moving short videos I've ever seen. I'm old enough to remember when there was still wonder in the world. This felt like that was back, and the song fit so perfectly.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A0FZIwabctw
Rick Wakeman's Tribute To David Bowie – Life On Mars
https://youtu.be/jogv7tD18gs
This was released as a charity single. The album that included this reached No.6 in the UK album charts.
That sounds slow to me. It was originally recorded in F, but the differences between PAL and NTSC video is why the original video is lower in pitch. You really should've just used the original album version.
"Rick Wakeman's Tribute To David Bowie – Life On Mars" on the BBC Radio 2 You Tube channel has a few of Wakeman's comments on the song. So what key is Wakeman playing in ? (He played on the original recording)
by seeing and listening to analyzing this great song, I really wonder what you would think about Try Some Buy Some by George Harrison
Absolutely fascinating Doug. One of the most interesting videos I’ve seen in a long time. Combining the story of the songs and the musical similarities and diversions was wonderful . Even though a lot of the musical theory went over my head, I enjoyed it immensely.
Thank you 🙏
You missed the telephone ringing at the very end of the track – I've always wondered what key that's in! 😀
Thanks Mick Ronson for that great arrangement. He even corrected Rick Wakeman during the session,
Great episode!
Paul Anka as just translated the lyrics of Comme D'Habitude composed by Jacque Revaux, Claude Francois and Gille Thibaut.we should see their names whit Pauk Anka !!
Dude! You never saw the overlap of Life on Mars and the second movement of Rachmoninov's 2nd Piano Concerto? 🎹
if you like music, there is a documentary, sort of, "low sound desert", where Sinatra moved to a little town and he forbid rock… that's where I started hating Frank… littlle piece of shit
Manowar:"Heart of steel" or "The crown and the ring" (with orchestra or not)
My Way's opening statement : root to Maj 6th, a very masculine 'up' major step, the highest within the 8ve you could go with a masculine/Major interval without sounding absurd (as would be the case going up a Maj 7th).
Pitching the music up or down on tape was a pretty common thing to do in the studio around that time — see artists like The Beatles who would do it for the sound it gave certain songs, like on Strawberry Fields Forever (it's somewhere in between A and A#).
However, in the case of Life On Mars, the studio version (at least on Spotify) is pretty close to F at concert pitch, while the video is 4% slower (and therefore lower in pitch). Usually a difference of 4% is because of a framerate thing — slowing 25fps video down by 4% makes it 24fps, which is a common filming framerate, and might explain the lower pitch on the original video. (The video stats YouTube gives show the video is actually still 25fps, but going frame by frame shows some frame interpolation/blending in parts of the video, meaning it might have been slowed down to 24fps but then resampled to 25fps.)
A similar thing happened with Pink Floyd's "Live at Pompeii" video release, but going the other way, where it was recorded at 24fps but sped up to 25fps (4% faster), making everything a slightly higher speed and pitch than recorded (Echoes for example is between C#m and Dm in the Live in Pompeii version)
For reference, speeding something up or down by around 5.95% pitches it up or down a full semitone.
[…in Spock voice]…Fascinating!
Yeahhhhh