In 1967 , David Bowie liberate his first album in the United Kingdom . The album contained a track about an spaceman advert Major Tom , who pleas for someone to tell his married woman he loves her as he floats off into space . The vocal , " Space Oddity , " and its central role could have easily been brushed off as a originative production of the psychedelic ' 60s — Sgt . Pepper anyone ? — until Major Tom reappeared just over a decade afterward in another Bowie track . The 1980 track " Ashes to Ashes , " a sequel to " Space Oddity " that touch to Major Tom as a junkie , " strung out in heaven ’s high . "
Of course , Bowie was live for his wild vision , so even with this character feature in two dissimilar songs , there was still no major reason to assume Major Tom was based on a realastronaut . Then , the intergalactic traveler showed up again in a cut by German artist Peter Schilling in 1983 . Schilling ’s tune , " Major Tom ( I ’m Coming plate ) " retold the tragic report of Major Tom over a thump techno ticktack , with completely different lyrics than the Bowie original .
Surely , the fact that multiple artists were cite this unlucky spaceman meant that he must have been based on a tangible person , right ? While in existent living there were two Apollo astronauts named Tom , neither were a Major , and both made it safely back to Earth without incident — namely , Thomas P. Stafford of Apollo 10 and Thomas K. Mattingly of Apollo 16 [ source : The Straight Dope ] .
So where did " Major Tom " come from ? Thanks to its dismissal date in the late ' 60 — the cart track was free in the United States in 1969 , right around the time of the synodic month landing . Many mistakenly consider that the moonlight landing inspired Bowie ’s song . Instead , Bowie revealed in a 2003 interview that the character Major Tom was actually pep up by Stanley Kubrick ’s " 2001 : A Space Odyssey , " combined with copious amounts of drugs [ origin : Hutchinson ] .
When he come back to Major Tom in " ash to Ashes , " Bowie was likely using the fibre to reference his own conflict with substance revilement [ source : The Straight Dope ] . As for Peter Schilling ’s reference — while his track was clearly a continuation of sorts to the original Bowie Sung dynasty — he never spoke publicly about his motivating for expel the tune . It ’s possible he was simply piggybacking off of Bowie ’s name and success — " Major Tom ( I ’m Coming Home ) " was Schilling ’s prominent outside strike , and his only top 40 strike in the United States [ germ : Songfacts.com ] .
