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Mars in Music
Beginning with the first planetary discoveries in antiquity, artists, writers, and other creatives have drawn inspiration and meaning from the planets of the solar system. Many musicians and composers have also looked to planets, and their perceived character, to create mood and meaning in songs.
Gustav Holst:
Mars, the Bringer of War (1914):
The English composer Gustav Holst composed seven movements for his suite The Planets, each inspired by a different planet in the solar system. For "Mars," Holst draws on astrology and the symbolic role of the Roman god Mars as a figure of war. Inspired by Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, "Mars" uses dissonant notes and an unconventional rhythm to create an aggressive and unsettling mood.
David Bowie:
Is There Life on Mars? (1971):
The surreal lyrics of Bowie's song "Is There Life on Mars?" depict the planet as an escape from an ordinary reality on Earth. Bowie later stated that the girl in the song, "living in the doldrums of reality, [is] being told that there's a far greater life somewhere, and she's bitterly disappointed that she doesn't have access to it."
Like Sun Ra, many of Bowie's songs reference space. For example, one of his most famous personas, Ziggy Stardust, is described as a "spider from Mars." Other famous Bowie songs include "Space Oddity" and "Starman."
Sun Ra:
Blues on Planet Mars (1968):
Much of jazz artist Sun Ra's music related to his perception of space travel and the cosmos. He believes that he visited Saturn in the mid-1930s, and his philosophies derive from occult and mythological sources. Sun Ra is often associated with the Afrofuturist movement,a school of thought that includes African American identity and history, science fiction, and cosmology.
In 1968 -- the same year Apollo 8 became the first manned spacecraft to orbit the Moon -- Sun Ra recorded "Blues on Planet Mars," with his band, the Astro-Solar-Infinity Arkestra. The song, one of several he wrote about Mars, features a clavinet with electronic effects to create an otherworldly feeling. |