Space Oddity (50th Anniversary) (LPS2)

LPSA

1. Space Oddity (Mono Single Edit)

LPSB

1. Wild Eyed Boy from Freecloud (Mono Single Version)

LPSC

1. Space Oddity (Single Edit 2019 Mix)

LPSD

1. Wild Eyed Boy from Freecloud (Single Version 2019 Mix)

As part of the ongoing celebrations marking 50 years since David Bowie’s first hit, and following the recent ‘Spying Through A Keyhole’, ‘Clareville Grove Demos’ and the “Mercury" Demos’ collections, Parlophone is releasing a very special double 7” single of SPACE ODDITY featuring brand new mixes by Tony Visconti. The vinyl set and a 1 track digital release of the single edit of the 2019 mix of Space Oddity for streaming and download will be released by Parlophone 12th July, 2019, the day after the original single’s 50th anniversary.

The SPACE ODDITY 50th anniversary double 7” set will come in a box including a double-sided poster featuring an original Space Oddity print advertisement and a Ray Stevenson shot of David taken on stage at the ‘Save Rave ‘69’ concert at the London Palladium on 30th November, 1969, the backdrop featuring a N.A.S.A. astronaut. The set also includes an information card and a print featuring an alternative shot by Jojanneke Claassen from the Space Oddity promo single cover session.

The cover of the original mono single is the rare UK promotional picture sleeve which, along with the label, features the original Philips trademark specifically cleared for this 50th anniversary release. The single itself has been cut from the original analogue single master tape. The jacket housing the 2019 mixes by Tony Visconti is a new design featuring alternative Ray Stevenson shot from the ‘Save Rave ‘69’ concert to that on the poster.

First released as a 7-inch single on 11 July 1969, Space Oddity was also the opening track of David Bowie’s self titled second studio album, David Bowie. Initially inspired by Stanley Kubrick's film 2001: A Space Odyssey, the song gained huge popularity when it was adopted as the unofficial theme of the Apollo 11 Moon landing mission which launched five days after the single’s release.

Over the past 50 years Space Oddity has been on a journey as endless  as that of it’s main character, Major Tom. Originally written and demoed in November 1968, the song has gone through many guises from appearing in the filmed for television special Love You Til Tuesday in an earlier recorded incarnation with John ‘Hutch’ Hutchinson, to being recorded in Italian ("Ragazzo solo, Ragazza sola”), winning an Ivor Novello Special Award for Originality in May 1970, the song was Bowie’s first hit on both sides of the Atlantic (#5 in the U.K. in 1969, #1 in the U.K. in 1975 and #15 in the U.S. in 1973), and in 2013 became the first music video shot in space when it was performed by Canadian astronaut Commander Chris Hadfield, while aboard the International Space Station, and . Major Tom remained to be a motif for Bowie throughout his career revisiting the character in the songs "Ashes to Ashes", "Hallo Spaceboy" and in the music video for "★”.