David Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’ Becomes a Children’s Book

From Ultimate Classic ROck: David Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’ Becomes a Children’s Book
The lyrics of David Bowie‘s 1969 classic ‘Space Oddity’ have been used as the basis of a colorful, if somewhat scary, illustrated children’s novel by artist Andrew Kolb.

A .pdf of the entire book can be downloaded for free at Kolb’s website. (Which as of today, Aug. 29, seemed to be a little difficult to load due to excessive traffic.) In just under 40 pages, the book tells the story of brave astronaut Major Tom, who launches himself into space and wins the adoration of the press reporters down on earth.

Then, he explores even further with a space walk, only to watch his craft suffer critical damage from a meteor storm, leaving him trapped in space with time to send just one final message of love down to his wife.

Of course, as Badass Digest points out, that’s just one possible interpretation of Bowie’s lyrics. Many people believe it’s not an accident, but choice that sends Tom out alone into the great beyond. The thinking goes that after seeing the beauty of space, he decides to leave Earth and all its problems behind once and for all.

Regardless of how it is meant to be taken, ‘Space Oddity,’ which was a hit immediately in England but didn’t take over the airwaves in America until a 1972 re-issue, has gone on to become of of Bowie’s signature songs. U2 used the song on their last tour as the soundtrack for their “360″ stage coming to life at the start of each concert.

Speaking of brave explorers disappearing into the outer regions, the author of the recent David Bowie biography ‘Starman’ has gone on record as saying he doubts we’ll ever hear new music from the “Thin White Duke” ever again.