SONGS ABOUT SPACEMEN
Y’see the clever thing is that people from space are called Spacemen. But in the hippy dippy parlance of the sixties both the worlds “Man” and Spaced” were commonly used shortcuts to saying “A person” and “the condition of being somewhat affected by mind altering drugs”. Couple this with the late sixties space race there is no surprise in the number of clever songs about spacemen.
None.
But here’s two anyway. Now certainly you are not expecting any Vivian Stanshall song to make any sense – he was a self styled peddlar of nonsense. Lyrically he saw himself as a capering jester. “I’m The Urban Spaceman” is no change from this policy, with the added bonus of having Neil Innes making farting noises in the background. Now I am well aware that the song is meant to be a hippy dippy pile of claptrap, but I think any first week philosopher might have trouble with the following Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band lyric:
“I’m the Urban Spaceman baby, but here’s the twist,
I don’t exist”
Now many a hard line sceptic may plough the furrow that the only thing they can prove is the existence of the self, but its a non-starter philisophically if you cannot even assert that the I doing the assertation does not exist. Descartes would certainly see the inherent flaw in its construction. Now I know th Bonzo’s never expected to be cited as a major existential text, but nevertheless – this is a bit bleeding obvious.
Not as bad though as the amazing fattening man. I am, of course, talking about the excellently named Jaz Mann (or Jazz Mag as his friends would call him – because he was a wanker). One hit wonder par excellence he can now be seen blocking out the sun in Bradford. From svelte androgyne to rotund lard arse in the chart life of one song. And said song was “Spaceman”:
“Spaceman – Always wanted you to go
Into space – man”
Can you see what Mr Corpulent has done there? Apart from turning an excitingly skittery five second advert tune into the most turgid of goth operas? He’s used the Spaceman / Space – Man trick. Forgetting that this was the nineties and the kids in the street were scratching their heads suggesting that if said man was a spaceman then he would have already gone into space. And hasn’t that bloke got lardy fast.
“Jaz Mann – always wanted you to go
Into Job Centre”