A Tale of New Technology

Last week I went into my concerns regarding the effects of new technologies such as the iPod and file sharing. What follows is an anecdote that demonstrates how current music technologies can help the listener (in this case me) to unlock fascinating musical associations and back stories with just a few clicks of a button.

It all began yesterday with iTunes Genius. Genius, for those unfamiliar, is a system within the iTunes player which takes a single song that you input and proceeds to recommend a playlist of anywhere from 25-100 similar songs from your own library. How well it works is obviously subject to the contents of your music collection, but on the whole it seems to work pretty well. My input yesterday was Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day,” as I’ve been on a bit of a Lou Reed kick since seeing Adventureland last weekend. Anyways, the next song on the Genius-generated playlist was “Life on Mars?” by David Bowie, a track I must have downloaded a while back and never really listened to.

David Bowie – Life on Mars? (YSI) (filesavr)

As I discovered, it’s a terrific song—well orchestrated, with a Broadway feel at times and a catchy chorus that really arrives. Thank you iTunes Genius! I proceeded to listen to the song on repeat while looking it up on Wikipedia, whence I learned this rather fascinating story behind “Life On Mars?”

In 1968, while Bowie was still obscure, he was hired to write English lyrics to a popular French song entitled “Comme d’habitude” (translation: as usual). But the song he wrote never ended up being released. Then, the Canadian songwriter Paul Anka bought the rights to “Comme d’habitude,” and wrote his own English-language version of the song. The result was “My Way,” which would become an instant classic when recorded by Sinatra the next year. Bowie then wrote “Life on Mars?” as a parodic response to the success of Sinatra's recording, success that Bowie felt he had been tantalizingly close to enjoying. He went so far as to use the exact chord progression of “My Way” in the verses of “Life on Mars?” anchored by the same descending chromatic line. As I'd never associated these two songs before, I was curious to hear the connection.

But I wouldn’t have been able to hear these similarities for myself without file sharing technology. Or at least I would have had to leave the house to do some record shopping. But with it, in about thirty seconds, I had recordings of both “My Way” and “Comme d’habitude.” And upon listening to "My Way" and "Life on Mars?" back to back, I realized that the harmonic commonality was quite clear, and my curiosity was satisfied.

Now, with blogging technology, I can share these tracks with you so that you can hear the similarities. I've also added my favorite cover of "Life on Mars?" by the innovative jazz trio The Bad Plus. It starts out slow, but builds to a strong finish and is worth a good listen.

Claude Francois – Comme d’habitude (YSI) (filesavr)

Frank Sinatra – My Way (YSI) (filesavr)

The Bad Plus – Life on Mars? (YSI) (filesavr)