We thought, when we sat down to compile a list of songs about space and astronomy, that it would be a nice easy thing to do.
After all, there are loads of them, aren’t there? Well, yes and no.
There are certainly a million and one songs with ‘star’ or ‘sun’ or ‘cosmic’ or ‘planet’ in the title… but that doesn’t mean they’re actually ABOUT space.
Taylor Swift’s ‘Starlight’, for instance, appears – as far as we can make out – to be about dancing on a yacht.
Ash’s ‘Girl From Mars’ is about having an unrequited teenage crush on someone, the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ ‘Subway To Venus’ turns out to be some kind of smutty sexual metaphor (MUST WE fling this filth at our pop kids?!) and as for ‘Andromeda’ by Gorillaz, your guess is as good as ours!
You get the idea: once we’d decided to limit our Top 29 to songs that actually have some kind of connection (however tenuous) to astronomy and/or space travel BEYOND a single word in the title, the field narrowed considerably.
We also wanted to keep it to tracks that we actually LIKE, or that we at least think aren’t terrible… which ruled out ‘Star Trekkin’ by The Firm, and a few others that we’re too polite to name!
And so, after much weeping and wailing and Googling of lyrics, here – in chronological order – is the Top 29 songs about space and astronomy we eventually came up with…
The Tornados – Telstar (Decca, 1962)
Taking its name from the communications satellite that had just gone into orbit, this Joe Meek-produced instrumental was the first record by a UK artist to top the Billboard Hot 100 in the USA. Its distinctive ‘space-y’ sounds came from a clavioline, an analogue synthesizer that was invented in 1947.
+ Bang up-to-date at the time of its release
+ Still sounds futuristic six decades on
- It’s not the world’s most hummable ditty, is it?
Scientific accuracy: 5/10. Hard to judge, given that there are no words!
Frank Sinatra – Fly Me to the Moon (Reprise, 1964)
A jazz standard, this Bart Howard composition was first recorded by Faye Ballard in 1954 but it’s Ol’ Blue Eyes’ 1964 version that’s most famous, having been played onboard both the Apollo 10 and Apollo 11 missions.
+ Other notable recordings include versions by Julie London, Judy Garland, Bobby Womack, Peggy Lee and Astrud Gilberto
- Really just a straight-up love song, rather than a paean to space travel
Scientific accuracy: 7/10. There’s not really any science in it, accurate or otherwise, but if it’s good enough for NASA, it’s good enough for us!
Pink Floyd – Astronomy Domine (Columbia, 1967)
The first track on the first Pink Floyd album set out their psychedelic stall nicely. Other flirtations with all things space over the course of the band’s six-decade career would include Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun (1968) and of course the Dark Side of the Moon album (1973).
+ Names an impressive number of Solar System moons.
+ Great atmospheric intro
- No idea who/what Portalia, Lapintin or Roscoe Thomas are
Scientific accuracy: 8/10. Gets the date of Pluto’s discovery right, for starters
The Rolling Stones – 2,000 Light Years From Home (Decca, 1967)
This slab of dense, dark psychedelia from Their Satanic Majesties Request was never released as a single in the UK but charted in Germany, while in most countries it appeared as the B-side to She’s A Rainbow.
+ Features a Mellotron played by Brian Jones, making the Stones pioneers of sample-based synthesis
+ If it’s this or “lovely Rita, meter maid” we know where our money’s going
- Blatantly has more to do with drugs than actual space travel!
Scientific accuracy: 3/10. “Bound for a star with fiery oceans”. Really?
David Bowie – Space Oddity (Philips, 1969)
The first of several Bowie recordings on this list, ‘Space Oddity’ rocketed (if you’ll pardon the pun) to the top of the charts, buoyed by the public’s obsession with spaceflight during the Apollo era. It gave Bowie his first hit single, but he’d have to wait three years for another.
+ Instantly recognisable
+ Helped kickstart the career of one of pop’s true geniuses
- It’s actually a very sad song: poor old Major Tom’s never coming home, is he?
Scientific accuracy: 6/10. Thankfully no astronauts have been stranded out in space yet but this is probably what it’d feel like if they were.
UFO – Silver Bird (Beacon, 1971)
They’d soon recruit a young Michael Schenker and reinvent themselves as a terrible heavy metal band, but in their early days UFO were among the UK’s finest purveyors of space rock, as evidenced by this tale of stumbling upon an alien spaceship and getting invited aboard…
+ Comes from the album ‘UFO 2: Flying’, which was subtitled ‘One Hour Space Rock’
+ Album also includes the epic, 19-minute ‘Star Storm’
- We never actually find out what happens once the ship takes off
Scientific accuracy: 7/10. The line “a strange kind being spoke to me in my tongue” anticipated the arrival of Google Translate years before Douglas Adams and his Babel fish
Hawkwind – Space Is Deep (United Artists, 1972)
We could have picked numerous Hawkwind tracks – they’re not known as “the godfathers of space rock” for nothing – but seldom did the Ladbroke Grove hippies wear their space obsession so proudly on their sleeve as on this cut from the Doremi Fasol Latido album.
+ A prime example of the band’s mellower side
+ The whole of the Doremi album is about a civilisation heading into space
- “Space is dark, it is so endless” – not exactly profound, is it?
- The words are mostly lifted from Michael Moorcock’s The Black Corridor.
Scientific accuracy: 6/10. “Dark and endless” sums space up pretty well!
David Bowie – Starman (RCA, 1972)
Three hit-free years on from Space Oddity, David Bowie decided to give space another go and scored another massive hit with this ditty about an alien visitor who’d like to come and meet us.
+ Bowie’s Top Of The Pops performance of this is legendary – the clip that launched 1,000 musical careers
+ Taken from the landmark Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars album
- That TOTP clip reveals some very questionable sartorial choices on the part of both audience and band
Scientific accuracy: 3/10. Despite SETI’s best efforts, the existence of starmen waiting in the sky has yet to be proven.
Elton John – Rocket Man (DJM Records, 1972)
22-year-old Bernie Taupin imagines leaving Earth on a spaceship, writes a song about it and gets his mate Reg to sing it. A multi-decade career ensues for both of them.
+ A stone-cold classic, even if you don’t like Elton John much
- Inspired a truly execrable (but kinda hilarious) 1978 spoken word version by William Shatner
Scientific accuracy: 8/10. “Mars ain't the kind of place to raise your kids/In fact, it's cold as hell” – can’t argue with that.
David Bowie – Life On Mars (RCA, 1973)
Bowie’s third appearance on this list. And yes, we know the song first appeared on ‘Hunky Dory’ in 1971… but about 14 people bought that album, first time around, so RCA re-issued it as a single in 1973, following the success of ‘Starman’.
+ Anthemic as you like. All together now: “Sailors, fighting in the dancehall”…
+ Inspired a TV series about a time-travelling Mancunian policeman, because of course it did
- The average temperature on Mars is -60°C (-80°F) and the atmosphere is 95% carbon dioxide, which would cause all kinds of problems that Mr Bowie for some reason chooses to overlook
Scientific accuracy: 1/10. Maybe more if we ever work out what he’s actually on about.
Chris De Burgh – A Spaceman Came Travelling (A&M,1975)
Prior to reinventing himself as a purveyor of Mum-friendly schmaltzy ballads à la ‘Lady In Red’, Chris De Burgh enjoyed a 10-year career as a serious singer-songwriter with a cult following – here, retelling the nativity story with the angel Gabriel as an itinerant astronaut.
+ We’ve heard much, much worse Christmas records
- Chorus is a blatant rip-off of ‘The Boxer’
Scientific accuracy: 2/10. So angels were astronauts, were they? Sounds like someone’s been watching too much ‘Ancient Aliens’…
Dexter Wansel – Life On Mars (Philadelphia International, 1976)
Not to be confused with the Bowie track, this scorching jazz-funk near-instrumental was the title track from Wansel’s space-themed long-player of the same name.
+ Other tracks on the album include ‘Rings Of Saturn’, ‘Stargazer’ and ‘Theme from The Planets’
+ Some superb musicianship on show here
- Minimal and very facile lyrics let it down
Scientific accuracy: 1/10. “You should go there, it is so nice… Mars”. Nice?! We refer you to our earlier comments (see the David Bowie track) vis à vis Mars’s average surface temperature and atmospheric composition.
The Carpenters – Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft (A&M, 1977)
Something of a departuture for the brother-and-sister MOR duo, Calling Occupants… was actually a cover of song written and released a year earlier by Canadian rock band Klaatu. Klaatu’s version was used as an ident on legendary pirate station Radio Caroline.
+ A 2016 ITV poll rated this the UK’s fifth-favourite Carpenters song
+ Epic production and maximum singalong appeal
- Sadly, World Contact Day, for which this was allegedly “the recognized anthem”, wasn’t actually a thing
Scientific accuracy: 5/10. Radio phone-ins are as likely a vector for first contact as any, we guess…
Sarah Brightman & Hot Gossip – I Lost My Heart to a Starship Trooper (Ariola Hansa, 1978)
Sarah Brightman started out as a member of UK dance troupe Hot Gossip, became the darling of Broadway and the West End and has latterly reinvented herself as a crossover classical artist. This cheese-tastic slice of space disco hasn’t aged that well but it’s still better than that duet with Cliff Richard.
+ “Gloriously camp” doesn’t even begin to cover it
+ Great pyow-pyow-pyow! raygun sounds
- The lyrics are a weird mash-up of Star Wars, Star Trek and Flash Gordon references
Scientific accuracy: 3/10. Y’all know Darth Vader’s not REAL, right?
Boney M – Nightflight to Venus (Hansa International, 1978)
The title track from the 1978 album that spawned the hits Brown Girl in the Ring, Rasputin and Rivers of Babylon… but waaaay better than any of them.
+ Great vocoder intro/countdown
+ The drums are like the missing link between glam rock and disco.
- Boney M were, generally, pretty terrible (IMHO) – this one blip notwithstanding
Scientific accuracy: 6/10. The flight’s alleged velocity of “2,183 miles per second” seems a tad unrealistic. ESA’s 2005-14 Venus Express mission, for instance, only hit a maximum speed of eight kilometres per second.
The Police – Walking on the Moon (A&M, 1979)
According to legend, a drunken Sting originally came up with the chorus for this while “walking round the room” to stop it from spinning…
+ The video for this was shot at Kennedy Space Center
+ Much better than most white rock bands’ excursions into reggae territory
- The song is, in the final analysis, essentially meaningless. But let’s play nice and call it “open to many interpretations,” shall we?
Scientific accuracy: 6/10. There’s very little gravity on the Moon so you will indeed take “giant steps”.
Landscape – From the Tea-rooms of Mars… To the Hell Holes of Uranus (RCA, 1981)
The second album by jazz-fusionists turned New Romantic synth-twiddlers Landscape spawned the memorable electro-pop hits ‘Einstein A Go-Go’ and ‘Norman Bates’. Its title track, though, was this frankly unhinged, mostly instrumental number that blends lounge, Latin, gypsy, carnival and sci-fi sounds.
+ Back in the early '80s, this sounded like nothing else on Earth
- Let’s face it, it’s only really here for the title
Scientific accuracy: 2/10. Very few words, so it doesn’t really apply.
Karen Young – Deetour (Black Sun, 1982)
Now you’re talking! US vocalist Karen Young was best known for her 1978 smash ‘Hot Shot’ on the legendary West End label, but at the tail-end of the disco era she recorded this tale of a spaceman who’s decided to pay Earth an unexpected visit.
+ Features some SERIOUSLY squelchy funk bass
+ A guaranteed but non-obvious disco floorfiller
- Some of the studio FX and analogue synth sounds haven’t aged that well
- Ms Young sadly passed away in 1991, aged just 39
Scientific accuracy: 5/10. Until we actually receive any alien visitors, it’s hard to say for sure whether Earth is on a main arterial route or would indeed require a detour to be made.
Adam Ant – Apollo 9 (CBS, 1984)
The vaguely rap-inspired sound of Adam Ant thrashing around for relevance in the post-Prince Charming era. Why he chose to namecheck one of the less-storied Apollo missions is anyone’s guess.
+ The hip-hop beats were quite forward-thinking at the time
- The Apollo 9 references seem to be there mostly for rhyming purposes
- Taken from Vive Le Rock – the Ant man’s least successful long-player
Scientific accuracy: 2/10. The idea that his errant lover “climbed onto the nearest star” evidences a woeful lack of astronomical understanding.
The Rah Band – Clouds Across the Moon (RCA, 1985)
An Earth-bound woman is missing her lover, the flight commander on flight Mars 247 – but when the operator puts her call through, he’s with another woman. The cad!
+ An '80s boogie classic, and a timeless tale of a woman wronged
+ 2024 saw the release of an excellent new AI video
- The Rah Band weren’t actually a band at all, but a studio project helmed by songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist Richard Anthony Hewson, with his wife Liz on vocals.
Scientific accuracy: 4/10. Regular passenger flights to the Red Planet have yet, sadly, to become a reality.
Space – Space (KLF Communications, 1990)
In 1990, Jimmy Cauty left The Orb to focus on his work with The KLF. He stripped away Alex Paterson’s contributions from what was going to be the first Orb long-player and released it as ‘Space’ – a concept album featuring eight sample-heavy ambient tracks named after Solar System planets (minus Earth, but including Pluto).
+ Lots of actual space sounds, real-life Mission Control dialogue and so on
+ Blazed a trail for The Orb’s ‘Adventures Beyond the Ultraworld’ and The KLF’s ‘Chill Out’
- Hard to find and not cheap: secondhand vinyl copies can go for £200-plus
- You’ll be wearing hemp clothes and changing your name to Starchild next…
Scientific accuracy: 10/10. The list of planets was correct at the time it was made – and the space sounds are real!
The Orb – Supernova At The End Of The Universe (Big Life, 1991)
The whole of the ‘Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld’ album has a space theme, with lots of Mission Control and sci-fi movie samples. We’ve singled out ‘Supernova…’ on the arbitrary basis that the fits into the box above better than ‘A Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Brain That Rules from the Centre of the Ultraworld (Live Mix Mk 10; Ultraworld Ten)’.
+ Whole album was a defining moment for the “slacker” generation, AKA Gen X
+ Made free with the sampler in ways you couldn’t get away with today
- Unlike ‘A Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Brain…’ this one doesn’t have Minnie Ripperton on it
Scientific accuracy: 2/10. Most cosmologists believe the Universe will end in a so-called ‘Big Chill’ when it reaches thermodynamic equilibrium, and not in a massive explosion at all…
Subculture feat Marcus – The Voyage (Strobe Records, 1991)
A young man looks at the state of the world around him, and dreams of journeying into space to find a planet that’s not quite so messed up…
+ An acknowledged deep house classic
+ The record’s over 30 years old but the green message feels very contemporary
- Elon Musk vibes…
Scientific accuracy: 8/10. Who hasn’t “looked up to the stars and wondered/why this world’s in such a mess?”
Babylon Zoo – Spaceman (EMI, 1996)
UK rock band Babylon Zoo had a surprise hit with this slice of quirky, leftfield pop after it featured in a commercial for Levi’s jeans. Babylon Zoo had two further UK Top 40 hits after this, but we bet you can’t name them.
+ Hear it, and you’re instantly whisked back to the late '90s
+ Chorus is catchy as all hell
- Lyrics don’t actually make a huge amount of sense
- Most of it sounds nothing like the bit on the ad, which annoyed buyers at the time
Scientific accuracy: 3/10. The song’s more about being fed up with THIS world than it is about exploring others.
Jamiroquai – Cosmic Girl (Sony, 1996)
Like ‘I Married A Monster From Outer Space’, here’s another one about falling in love with an alien being – and as with ‘Clouds Across The Moon’, it appears one of the big problems is unreliable telephony (“It's a distant solar system / Tried to phone but they don't list 'em”).
+ Space is something for a theme for Jay Kay – see also ‘Space Cowboy’
- What is it about pop stars, space and telephones?
- WARNING: Dad dancing may ensue
Scientific accuracy: 6/10. Close analysis of the lyrics reveals them to be essentially word soup, yet surprisingly free of any blatant scientific howlers.
Beastie Boys – Intergalactic (Grand Royal, 1998)
Admittedly, ‘Intergalactic’ doesn’t really have much to do with space at all, being instead a typical piece of rap braggadocio – Messrs Horovitz, Yauch and Diamond (or Ad-Rock, MCA and Mike D, if you prefer) are simply claiming to the greatest rappers not just on the planet or even in the Solar System, but in the entire cosmos. But we still like it.
+ Won the 1999 Grammy for Best Rap Performance
+ Came with a cool video that paid homage to Japanese ‘kaiju’ (monster) movies
- Not actually a song about space
Scientific accuracy: 10/10. Because Ad-Rock, MCA and Mike D probably were the greatest rappers in the cosmos.
Moby – We Are All Made of Stars (Mute, 2002)
The lead single from Moby’s 2002 album ‘18’, and the only track on this list by an artist who’s actually appeared in BBC Sky at Night Magazine – Moby’s a keen amateur astronomer in his spare time and we interviewed him about it in 2007.
+ Moby’s wearing a space helmet on the cover
+ We’re still not 100% sure what the song’s actually about… even after Moby explained it
Scientific accuracy: 9/10. We are, indeed, all made of elements forged inside stars.
Muse – Supermassive Black Hole (Warner, 2006)
Muse’s fourth album ‘Black Holes and Revelations’ saw them moving away from Radiohead-esque indie-rock miserablism and embracing more electronic sounds while, lyrically, exploring sci-fi themes – and spawned this UK No 4 single.
+ Gotta love that sleazy, grindin’ guitar riff
- The supermassive black hole in question is purely metaphorical
Scientific accuracy: 2/10. Just saying “supermassive black hole” over and over again doesn’t really cut it, sorry…
Sam Ryder – Space Man (Parlophone, 2022)
Long-haired, bearded surfer and vegan café owner ponders the comparative merits of being an astronaut vs being an everyday, ordinary human here on Earth, tells his girl that “as long as you’re on the ground, I’ll stick around” – and comes second at Eurovision 2022 for his troubles.
+ The UK’s best Eurovision placing since 1998
- Ryder’s breathless falsetto is quite annoying, but then that’s modern pop for you…
Scientific accuracy: 7/10. Ryder’s analysis of what he’d do if he was an astronaut – float in mid-air, search for alien life, etc – seems fairly on-the-money at least.
Honourable mentions
Were this list longer, we might have found room for…
- The Byrds – Mr Spaceman (Columbia, 1966)
- The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band – I’m the Urban Spaceman (Liberty, 1968)
- Credence Clearwater Revival – It Came Out of the Sky (Fantasy, 1973)
- Deep Purple – Space Truckin’ (Capitol, 1973)
- Devo – Space Junk (Virgin, 1978)
- A Flock Of Seagulls– Space Age Love Song (Jive, 1982)
- Belle & Sebastian – A Space Boy Dream (Jeepster, 1998)
… but we didn’t. So deal with it!
No, seriously, folks – if we’ve missed out one of your favourite songs about space, email and let us know via contactus@skyatnightmagazine.com
