Editing Space Oddity (section)

===Lyrics===
"Space Oddity" tells the story of an astronaut named Major Tom, the first of Bowie's famous characters.{{sfn|Perone|2007|p=11}} Major Tom is informed by Ground Control that a malfunction has occurred in his spacecraft; but the astronaut does not get the message.{{sfn|Perone|2007|p=11}} He remains in space "sitting in a tin can, far above the world",<ref>{{cite news |last=Bahrampour |first=Tara |date=11 January 2016|url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/singer-david-bowie-dies-at-69-mesmerizing-performer-of-many-alter-egos/2016/01/11/e133f63c-b859-11e5-99f3-184bc379b12d_story.html |title=David Bowie dies at 69; mesmerizing performer and restless innovator |newspaper=[[The Washington Post]] |access-date=14 February 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160214055218/https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/music/singer-david-bowie-dies-at-69-mesmerizing-performer-of-many-alter-egos/2016/01/11/e133f63c-b859-11e5-99f3-184bc379b12d_story.html |archive-date=14 February 2016 |url-status=live}}</ref> preparing for his lonely death.<ref name="mtv-rosenfield" /> In 1969, Bowie compared Major Tom's fate to the ending of ''2001: A Space Odyssey'', saying: "At the end of the song Major Tom is completely emotionless and expresses no view at all about where he's at. He's fragmenting&nbsp;... at the end of the song his mind is completely blown&nbsp;– he's everything then."{{sfn|Pegg|2016|p=255}} The authors David Buckley and [[Peter Doggett]] comment on the unusual vocabulary in the lyrics, such as "Ground Control" rather than "Mission Control", "space ship" rather than "rocket", "engines on" rather than "ignition", and the "unmilitary combination" of rank and first name for the character.{{sfn|Buckley|2005|p=61}}{{sfn|Doggett|2012|p=61}}

Bowie's biographers have provided different interpretations of the lyrics. According to Doggett, the lyrics authentically reflect Bowie's mind and thoughts at the time. He writes that Bowie shone a light on the way advertisers and the media seek to own a stake in a lonely man in space while he himself is exiled from Earth.{{sfn|Doggett|2012|p=61}} Chris O'Leary said the song is a "moonshot-year prophecy" that humans are not fit for space evolution and the sky is the limit.{{sfn|O'Leary|2015|loc=chap. 3}} Similarly, James E. Perone views Major Tom acting as a "literal character" and a "metaphor" for individuals who are unaware of, or do not make an effort to learn, what the world is.{{sfn|Perone|2007|p=11}} In 2004, the American feminist critic [[Camille Paglia]] identified the lyrics as representing the [[counterculture of the 1960s]], stating, "As his psychedelic astronaut, Major Tom, floats helplessly into outer space, we sense that the '60s counterculture has transmuted into a hopelessness about political reform ('Planet Earth is blue / And there's nothing I can do')".{{sfn|Buckley|2005|p=61}}