The latest guest blog from Carl Lee - thanks as always to Carl for his support of the project.
Moon age daydream
Artemis 2, NASA’s re-pitching of the USA as the head of the global space race, spent a fortnight or so in April 2026 at the head of the news as it took a tour of the 'dark side of the moon'. To get a good news story out of the USA was going some at that time and it reminded me to look back at Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield’s 2013 version of David Bowie’s song ‘Space Oddity’ that he recorded on the International Space Station.
This is a version that Bowie himself described as “possibly the most poignant version of the song ever created”.
Now I’m a big moon fan: a picture of a full moon rising over a southern Scottish village is the cover my last book ‘…So Where Are You From? Geography, Identity and Place’ and within it I set out my ‘Moon age daydream’.
“All my life I have stared at the moon, from slivers of new moons through to ‘super’ full moons, whether peaking out from scudding clouds in a rain swept Sheffield, or in the sharp clarity of a clear Himalayan sky. You probably have to, wherever you live”.
Editor comment: I have a copy of the book and it's well worth reading as a companion piece to Carl's earlier book 'Home' based around a year in the city of Sheffield - Alan
This is a precursor to a short essay on how the image ‘Blue Marble’ taken by astronaut Eugene Cernan helped to develop a global sense of place, and acted as a spur for the burgeoning environmental thinking, and social movements of the 1970s, even though, ironically, Cernan, on retiring from 'astronauting' became an avid promoter of fossil fuel energy interests, even becoming the vice-president of an oil company. Truly an ‘all-American hero’.
Source: NASA.
Unsurprisingly the Moon is a perennial topic of musical inspiration because as Paul Simon put it in his “Song About A Moon’:
“If you want to write a song about the human race, write a song about the moon”.
The early Greeks grasped this with their Orphic Hymns including one to the moon, which is a “goddess queen diffusing silver light”. Yet you don’t have to journey so far back in history to explore the songs of, about, and inspired by, the moon.
It’s a musical ‘parlour game’ as to what might be your favourite moon songs.
Please let us know your favourite moon songs in the comments, or by filling in the Google Form at the bottom of the post.
If I were pushed to name mine, three distinctly different versions of moon music would have to vie for any definitive parlour choice.
The sensuous beauty of Van Morrison’s ‘Moondance’ with its twinkling jazz piano, late night vibe, and sultry evocation of a mysterious moonlight assignation would have to be a contender. The song was first released as the title song on his third studio album in 1970 but didn’t become a single until 1977.
Neil Young’s ‘Harvest Moon’ (1992) has a similar romantic quality but set within its country frame.
The inverse to the romantic qualities that the moon projects, is the dark side of the moon.
Creedence Clearwater Revival’s ‘Bad Moon Rising’(1969) is a prime example with ‘trouble’ on the way and the end ‘coming soon’. This is the moon of werewolves, horror movies and dark deeds. It is also the moon of Echo and the Bunnyman’s ‘The Killing Moon’ with its dark refection on the moment of death.
“The killing time,
unwillingly mine.
Fate up against your will.”
Other folk may have different interpretations of Ian McCulloch’s lyrics but I’m going to stick with my existential howl at the moon.
A more prosaic lyrical moon song is Gil Scott Heron’s rap poem, with a variety of musical settings, of ‘Whitey On The Moon’. Here I’ve opted for the JDilla’s modern take with its video reference to Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson and Elon Musk, the ultimate triumvirate of space-obsessed white men.
As I muse in “ …So Where Are You From”:
“ Will Musk bestride Mars? Will Bezos be mining rare minerals from the moon? Will Virgin Galactic be running day trips to the moon?”
And all the while whilst wondering whether the more mundane challenges of living on Earth: the environmental, social and economic realities, are perhaps more pertinent to the billions who are part of the 80% of the global population who have never even flown in a plane let alone aspired to bestride the moon. Although all of them will have stared at the moon, on a monthly basis.
Musk et al will probably be more comfortable with Sting from The Police’s exhortation that “giant steps are what you take, walking on the moon” (1979) whose video is shot ad hoc at the Kennedy Space Centre where Artemis moonshots are launched from. Stuart Copeland mimes the drum on the hulking body of the Saturn V moon rocket.
It is all an oddity, a veritable moon age daydream.
Carl Lee is retired but was a lecturer at The University of Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam University, taught A level Geography for 20 years at Sheffield College, is the author of five books about geography and has a PhD in economic geography. He has been nuts about music since buying his first single in 1973: 10cc’s 'Rubber Bullets' if you were wondering.
Editor comment: I'd probably go for Bruce Hornsby's 'Circus on the Moon' - excellent from the album 'Halcyon Days', plus Mike Oldfield's 'Moonlight Shadow' and Yusuf/Cat Stevens' 'Moonshadow' - Alan
Please let us know what you would pick in the Google Form below or add a comments.
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