David Bowie - Parkinson Interview ("Life on Mars", 2002)

Talk with Michael Parkinson and as second guest Tom Hanks. Bowie performs "Everyone says "HI"" from the album "Heathen" and "Life on Mars" in the show (with Mike Garson at the piano).
About the song "Life on Mars" and the link to Frank Sinatra: When released as a single in 1973, it reached number three in the UK and stayed on the chart for thirteen weeks. In 2015 Neil McCormick, chief rock music critic of "The Daily Telegraph", ranked it as number one in his "100 Greatest Songs of All Time" list. In 1968 Bowie wrote the lyrics "Even a Fool Learns to Love", set to the music of a 1967 French song "Comme d'habitude", composed by Claude François and Jacques Revaux. Bowie's version was never released, but Paul Anka bought the rights to the original French version, and rewrote it into "My Way", the song made famous by Frank Sinatra in a 1969 recording on his album of the same name. The success of the Anka version prompted Bowie to write "Life on Mars" as a parody of Sinatra's recording. In notes for a Bowie compilation CD that accompanied a June 2008 issue of "The Mail on Sunday". Bowie described how he wrote the song: "Workspace was a big empty room with a chaise longue; a bargain-price art nouveau screen ('William Morris,' so I told anyone who asked); a huge overflowing freestanding ashtray and a grand piano. Little else. I started working it out on the piano and had the whole lyric and melody finished by late afternoon." Bowie noted that Wakeman "embellished the piano part" of his original melody and guitarist Mick Ronson "created one of his first and best string parts" for the song. The liner notes for Hunky Dory indicate that the song was 'inspired by Frankie'. One reviewer suggested the song was written after "a brief and painful affair" with actress Hermione Farthingale. While on tour in 1990, Bowie introduced the song by saying "You fall in love, you write a love song. This is a love song." (Source: Wikipedia)

The poem Bowie refers to at about 10:15 is the following:

"This Be The Verse" by Philip Larkin

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don’t have any kids yourself.

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