Although you might think someone would have explained this somewhere on the web, an extensive Google search showed no results. So - can anyone explain what the lines “Just pictures of Jap girls in synthesis and I” and later “But the little green wheels are following me” are on about? And most of the rest of the song?
Generally, I think it’s about a heroin habit, but no idea about individual lines, which may just be surrealist chatter. The “little green wheels” line, is of course, immediately following, “time and again I tell myself/ I’ll stay clean tonight. . .”; “I’m hoping to kick” is pretty clear, and the Major Tom lines/ first couple of stanzas refer to an earlier cryptic drug-themed song (Space Oddity). In general it seems like a song-tribute to a song-- the original song was about a heroin habit, and this one is about the continuation/ attempts to kick that habit.
Actually, looking at the lyrics on that site, they are all pretty clear, except the ones you cite above, which might be highly individual idiosyncratic drug-induced imagery that no one but David himself could explain.
Wow-I had no idea. http://www.teenagewildlife.com/Albums/SO/SO.html says " Supposedly inspired by the plight of the Apollo 8 astronauts, Bowie later returned to Major Tom in his 1980 hit, Ashes to Ashes."
Maybe “Ashes to Ashes” meant to enlightened square folks like me to the real meaning in “Sapce Oddity”? “We know Major Tom’s a junkie”?
Quick Bowie trivia:
In Space Oddity, the “day in the life”-esque orchestral buildup is allegedly supposed to represent the feeling between shooting up and the heroin “hitting”.
Bowie was famous for developing lyrics in a creative style that involved cutting up phrases he had written in his notebook and rearranging them. In this way, he is uncovering ‘something’ that is beyond the literal meaning of the words. I guess he creates a mood and an impression and sometimes literal meaning. It’s a very rich artistic approach.
I was going to say ‘have you looked up the Wikipedia article?’ when I saw the date of the OP. It was only 1-2 months after Wikipedia was launched on 15 Jan 2001 and while an ‘Ashes to Ashes’ song page was precisely the sort of thing that would have been started by an early 21st century Bowie nerd, they clearly didn’t do it early enough.
Bowie’s cut-up song writing style was borrowed from W.S. Burroughs and he’s been interviewed about it a few times but I couldn’t be arsed looking through Youtube, which also wasn’t invented when the OP popped their question.
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