Does it take a starman to remind us of our place on planet Earth?

David Bowie’s Major Tom is an average geezer who loves his wife, a fragile human being in the hands of commercial forces he doesn’t understand, writes Victoria White

I’VE watched Mick Rock’s 1972 video for David Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’ so many times I’m in my own tin can now, far above the world.

Bowie delivers the words straight to camera apart from the moment when Major Tom blasts into space when his arm lifts like a dancer’s. His hair is red and he’s wearing eye-shadow and platforms, visual cues which question Major Tom’s entire project — as do his sadly un-American teeth. But his delivery is deadpan. He leaves us to draw our own conclusions.