Starman
Hello…
Are you there?
Ground Control to Major Tom?
I… I hope you don’t mind me addressing you like this,
But it’s just that I feel I know you,
After that summer,
You know the one,
When we’d bought School’s Out and Aladdin Sane,
And blasted them out for the whole holiday
At my pal’s house
Because his mum was doing summer school
And didn’t seem to mind the catalogue of neighbour complaints
That were waiting for her each night.
And, ever since then,
I’ve had your voice in my head,
The Starman who watches over me,
My own personal Jean Genie.
And you taught me that it really was OK
To be the odd one out,
To be the only person in my year who didn’t like Slade,
And to have long hair and not wear a fucking Crombie.
And, hell, if you could be Ziggy and wear a dress
And still have girls chasing you,
Well,
Then there was hope for me
And I wouldn’t be a Diamond Dog
All my life.
And later you showed me I could wear suits
And still look kinda cool,
That I could say Let’s Dance
To girls that I liked
And, maybe, know a little
Modern Love.
And I’ve always turned to you when I’ve been
Under Pressure,
Or when I felt like Dancing In the Street.
And you gave yourself to my every bedsit room,
Well, at least your posters on my wall,
And I even bought your
Tin Machine CDs although everyone said they were crap,
Because being weird is really all about
Getting it wrong some times.
So, I’m going to miss you,
Ziggy Stardust.
And without your poems I’m going to
Be writing on the walls,
But now it’s time for Ashes to Ashes
And I hope it’s Hunky Dory wherever you are
With Andy Warhol
By your side
And that, by the time I get there,
Heaven will be a weirder place.
Because now you’ve gone and left me out on a limb,
No notice, no nothing,
Not even Five Years,
And though I keep hoping that it’s all a stunt,
And that you’ll swoop down onto the stage
Like Lazarus on a flywire
I’m scared that it’s really true and that you are really gone,
And that I’ll have to
Keep you alive by playing your old records
Like some sad old man,
Because I think the kids have killed a man
And it’s time to break up the band.
Can you hear me, Major Tom?
