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Good articleLife on Mars (song) has been listed as one of the Music good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
October 15, 2021Good article nomineeListed
Did You Know
A fact from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the "Did you know?" column on October 26, 2021.
The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that David Bowie wrote his 1971 track "Life on Mars?" as a parody of Frank Sinatra's "My Way"?

Requested move 9 September 2015

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The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: not moved. Clearly there is a consensus against the proposed title, "Life on Mars? (song)". Whether it should instead be moved to simply "Life on Mars?" is an interesting question, but there is not a consensus for that move in this discussion. It should possibly be followed up on in a new RM if anyone feels strongly enough. Jenks24 (talk) 16:05, 25 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

--After eight days from the death of David Bowie, the Italian perfumer Angelo Orazio Pregoni creates: LIFE ON MARS ?. A fragrance in just eight pieces. Mourning, dedicated to David Bowie. On the label a little alien man, outside a flying disc, is urining on the clouds. Among aliens hints so arduous, the perfume develops in a elegant unisex, moving for his revolutionary vanilla note.--


Life on Mars (song) → Life on Mars? (song) – Shall we add back "?" without removing "(song)"? I see it used in the album packaging of Hunky Dory. In previous RM two years ago, consensus favoured parenthetical disambiguation. Someone else tried to remove "(song)" without being aware of that discussion, but I fortunately reverted it back to the current title. I think we can take "Gangsta? (Tinchy Stryder song)" as a precedent to this. George Ho (talk) 07:33, 9 September 2015 (UTC) Relisted. Jenks24 (talk) 10:13, 17 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Note, I have updated the Gangsta? article. Looking into the matter, the original article on the topic had been deleted because it had been created by a banned user, and the title was then redirected to Gangsta. Because there had been an existing article at the title, a new title with the same name cannot be created unless the history is deleted. I have now done that, and the article is back at the appropriate title. SilkTork ✔Tea time 10:47, 14 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I reverted it back to the previous title, SilkTork. Therefore, you must start the RM. --George Ho (talk) 15:25, 15 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
@Richhoncho and 70.51.202.113: The side-A label includes the "?"; so do German and Spanish editions. Not the same said for French and Irish ones. --George Ho (talk) 15:31, 15 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
That merely proves the question mark is optional. I would, in this case, stick with the grammatically correct - without the question mark. As it is about a song I would also point out DB does not sing the question mark either. --Richhoncho (talk) 17:08, 15 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know whether you listened to the song before, Richhoncho, but the lyrics showed him including the titled phrase in form of question. --George Ho (talk) 02:28, 16 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Trust me, I am familiar with the song ;). The lyric is, "Is there life on Mars?" which correctly takes the question mark. I remember seeing the title rendered as "(Is There) Life on Mars?" which would also take the question mark. but the bottom line is that the artwork shown in the article, and grammatically, there is no question mark. Hence my opposition to the move. --Richhoncho (talk) 09:49, 16 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
Per RM at Talk:The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Rich, the artwork is no longer the case. George Ho (talk) 22:12, 16 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
I made some edits, Dohn joe. Therefore, it should be more consistent in the article. Gh87 in the public computer (talk) 19:45, 18 September 2015 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Single release

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Why was this released as a single two years later ? Had they run out of suitable singles from Aladdin Sane ? -- Beardo (talk) 05:53, 17 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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BBC Radio 2 documentary

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The BBC Radio 2 documentary Exploring 'Life on Mars?', presented by Martin Kemp and first broadcast on 9 January 2017, examines the background to the song and includes interviews with Bowie and many of those associated with the record. It could certainly be added as a source. The programme revealed that, after the quiet reprise of the piano at the end of the song, the master tape captures the ringing of the public telephone adjacent to the studio and the voice of Mick Ronson swearing in frustration. They first take of the recording had had to be abandoned when someone rang the phone by mistake: [1]. Martinevans123 (talk) 22:15, 2 January 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Song's title

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Hey zmbro, do you have anything regarding the titling of this song? Looking at Discogs, I see that the liner notes to Hunky Dory title the song with the question mark, but on the vinyl's label, it instead titles it without. The single release does it the other way around, with the picture sleeve (as seen in the infobox) not including a question mark, but the label instead including it. I think it's worth including as a note or a parenthetical in the first sentence of the lead, since it helps justify why this page is listed as "Life on Mars (song)" and not something else. Tkbrett (✉) 21:17, 10 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

There is a question mark in the title. I know for a fact all of the books I have have the question mark. I notice there was a discussion on this back in 2015 higher up on this page that basically discusses this same thing. I mean yeah the single's artwork doesn't have it, but then again it came out 18 months after the album and even David himself on the handwritten liner notes wrote it with a question mark. The line in the song itself is also a question. IMO it doesn't warrant a note or anything like that because to my recollection not many of them talk about the mark (unlike the quotes around "Heroes"), so I feel I wouldn't have a source to backup all these different punctuation errors. – zmbro (talk) (cont) 21:37, 10 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
The strange one is that the printed label on Hunky Dory lists it as "Life on Mars" even though Bowie's liner notes include the question mark.
If the title is definitely with the question mark though, I think it might make sense to move this page to "Life on Mars?" or "Life on Mars? (song)", as was suggested in the 2015 requested move. What do you think? Tkbrett (✉) 21:49, 10 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
I always assumed the question mark was absent due to technical restrictions but if they can be used in titles I agree that it should be in the title. – zmbro (talk) (cont) 14:31, 11 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Rachmaninoff piano concerto no.2, end of mvt.2

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I can't find any references that would even mention it, but it sounds like direct interpretation of Rachmaninoff's piano concerto. Is it a coincidence or plagiarism? 87.241.185.81 (talk) 15:27, 14 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Here it is. From which time exactly? Are you sure you didn't mean to post somewhere else? 86.187.169.5 (talk) 15:37, 14 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]
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