Musics below.
Peter Schilling
Major Tom (Coming Home) (Special Extended Version)
Major Tom (Coming Home) (Instrumental Version)
In the 70s and 80s Italian exploitation filmmakers had a habit of making unofficial sequels to established, popular films. Dawn Of The Dead (known as Zombi in Europe) begat Zombi 2. The Australian film Patrick, inspired a completely unrelated piece of crap called Patrick Still Lives. The Italians also made rip-off wanna-be sequels to Evil Dead II (La Casa 3), The Exorcist (The Naked Exorcism) and about 8 billion movies that claimed to be somehow connected to The Last House On The Left.
I bring this up because I believe that “Major Tom (Coming Home)” may be one of the only unofficial song sequels, it being a continuation of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity,” chronicling the further adventures of everyone’s spaced out spaceman Major Tom. Of course, it’s not really a sequel, just like those infamous Italian hack jobs, “Major Tom (Coming Home)” has almost nothing in common with its source of inspiration. Although that didn’t stop the song from becoming a huge hit, Schilling’s only international success.
Which leads me to question, why didn’t Schilling continue his hackery and release “sequels” to other Bowie tunes? This one worked out well for him. Why not “The Man Who Bought The World,” “Five More Years,” or even more appropriate, “Life On [Insert Planet Here].” Maybe even he had some shame.
Regardless of its origins, it’s hard to deny the charm of “Major Tom (Coming Home).” That chorus sure is catchy. Here it is in both its extended 12″ version (which combines the English language and German versions) as well as the instrumental B-side.
A-Ha
The Sun Always Shines On TV (Extended Version)
The Sun Always Shines On TV (Instrumental)
Driftwood
I originally posted the extended take of “The Sun Always Shines on TV” and “Driftwood” back in 2009, but I felt like re-sharing them now that I re-recorded them on decent equipment. So if you have those old rips, set them on fire and throw them away! Or just send them to recycle bin, whatever. After you do that, download them again, because these new rips sound so much better.
And if you didn’t download them back in 2009, download them now anyway! “The Sun Always Shines on TV” is A-ha’s best song. I am proclaiming that as a fact even though the only A-Ha record I own is a greatest hits and I’m fairly certain I never listened to it all the way through.
Eurythmics
Revival (Extended Dance Mix)
Once again, I spent so much time writing about other songs for a post that by the time I get to the last one I am too tired to think of anything interesting to say. But hey, it’s a good song. Don’t let my blogging limitations prevent you from enjoying it.
i’ve always been perplexed by the unofficial sequel nature of “major tom (coming home)” to “space oddity” when “space oddity” kinda had a sequel with “ashes to ashes” which was released 3 years prior to “major tom”; so i often wondered if this was really a continuation of “space oddity” or if it was a continuation of “ashes to ashes”…so confusing lol.