I acknowledge that John & Taupin drew their inspiration from Bradbury. However, I suggest Bowie’s inspiration may have arisen from a story that appeared in Harlan Ellison’s ‘Dangerous Visions’ anthology. In that story, the pilot of an Apollo mission’s return module has a sort of mental breakdown while in Lunar orbit,and blasts away (back to Earth? or just at random?), leaving the two Lunar Excursion men marooned on the Moon. Had Bowie included the abandoned men in ‘Oddity’, it would have needed near-opera-length treatment to properly deal with the subject matter.
Also, is Cecil Adams really the ‘Smartest Person on Earth’? I know things he/they doesn’t/don’t, and I am a discrete organism, not an amalgam or team; I contend that since Isaac Asimov died I am now smartest.
This can only end in tears.
Somebody that smart would know enough to link to the original column. It’s Followup: Isn’t Bowie’s “Rocket Man” based on a Ray Bradbury story?.
And somebody that smart would have actually given us the name of the specific story in Dangerous Visions (my copy is signed "for Exapno - Always!) that he refers to. I can’t figure out what’s he talking about. The only moon story in DV is “The Man Who Went to the Moon - Twice” by Howard Rodman and that’s a children’s fable. Perhaps a Barry Malzberg novel instead?
And everybody knows that the contest is between me and Cecil, and I don’t have (or need) a team of researchers to do the work for me. You ain’t even in the running. Sorry.
I detest links, and refuse to post them. “Somebody that smart would know” that DV was so over-submitted that a 2nd volume was needed, and a 3rd may someday emerge if Ellison lives long enough. Also, “everyone knows the contest is between Cecil and…” somebody no one ever heard of with an even less likely screen name than my own? Whose observed English skills are less than stellar? Really? Good for you; keep telling yourself you’re the smartest.
The first rule of being smartest person on earth, is that you don’t talk about being the smartest person on earth, duh actually.
Three and a half years, and that’s the best retort you’ve got?
You’re forgetting the light lag between here and his secret moonbase 20 1/2 light months away.
He’ll be back with a similar blistering retort at the end of January 2016.
Well how in the heck did you find this thread, then?
Powers &8^]
Well, all else aside, the OP’s question piqued my curiosity, and a little searching indicates that the story is K.M. O’Donnell’s “Still-Life.”
For the record, none of the characters are, as it happens, named “Tom.”
YOur choice, of course. But Cecil has thousands of old columns in the Archive, and our search engine is not the greatest. Even with a perfect search engine, searching takes time. And selecting the wrong word (even singular vs plural) can be even more time-consuming. So, to be helpful to other posters, we strongly encourage people starting a thread to post a link to the column in question.
The second reason is to help keep us on the same page and avoid overmuch redundancy/repetition. If the opening post has a link to the column, there’s a reasonable chance that people will read the column before posting. That helps avoid people posting what they think is new information or a new insight, but what is in reality already in Cecil’s column. As I say, avoids repetition and redundancy.
So, those are two reasons that we prefer people posts link to the column when starting a new thread.
Dex,
Although your explanation is nice, I’m afraid it will fall on deaf ears, so to speak. As Oakminstrr pointed out, it took him 3 and a half years to come back at Exapno Mapcase..
That has to be some kind of record for a retort that seems on the surface to be seamless and during the same relative timeframe.
I found the lyrics confusing, having read neither of those stories (I have always been more of an Asimov and Heinlein fan, although I did read the Martian Chronicles). However, when Elton John finally came out of the closet, years after writing the song, my mind went to the gutter, so to speak, and found two lines: the title Rocket Man could be, well, you know; being “high as a kite” may possibly refer to using drugs; and “I’m not the man they think I am at home” could refer to being in the closet. But I am not saying that IS so, and after reviewing the entire song, I believe I was mistaken. But let that be a lesson to me, and to everyone else, not to judge a song by only a couple of lines.
However, COULD it be that “Mary had a little lamb” was originally a coded way of teaching the Ave Maria and other Catholic Marian beliefs during the reigns of Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, and James I? Nah, probably just a coincidence!
You mean…a song that came out in 1969 might have been inspired by a short story that came out in 1972? 
I mean, I’m a bigger Bowie fan than most, but I really doubt that he’s either psychic or a time traveller, y’know?
“K. M. O’Donnell” is of course Barry Malzberg. Barry wrote a million stories about astronauts in that era.
What do you think the “h” in http stands for?