Talk:Life on Mars (song)

Requested move 9 September 2015

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)

--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)

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)

I reverted it back to the previous title, SilkTork. Therefore, you must start the RM. --George Ho (talk) 15:25, 15 September 2015 (UTC)

• Comment I think the person who moved the page was aware of the old move request, atleast after it was moved, since they archived the old move request into the archives, after moving the page. They should have reverted themselves and opened a new request after discovering the old move request. -- 70.51.202.113 (talk) 05:29, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose the cover of the single clearly does not use a question mark -- 70.51.202.113 (talk) 05:29, 11 September 2015 (UTC)
• The title of the article should be Life on Mars? - there is no need to add (song) as a disambiguating term, as the question mark already provides the appropriate disambiguation. We have guidelines and policies to support us in making decisions about article titles. The policy which applies here is Wikipedia:Article titles - and the appropriate sections are WP:Common name, WP:Natural & WP:SMALLDETAILS - most sources, including davidbowie.com, use the question mark, so common name applies: books: The Words and Music of David Bowie By James E. Perone, David Bowie - The Man Who Changed the World By Wim Hendrikse, David Bowie: The Music and The Changes By David Buckley, Radio Daze By Mike Olszewski, Goldmine Standard Catalog of American Records 1948-1991 By Martin Popoff, The Man who Sold the World: David Bowie and the 1970s By Peter Doggett; websites; davidbowie.com, Discogs, itunes, allmusic, etc. WP:Natural applies when we need to disambiguate - there is already an article called Life on Mars, so - even if the use of the Bowie song title in sources was mainly "Life on Mars", we would prefer to use a natural disambiguation - that is a title by which the topic is also known, rather than using an artificial one such as adding (song). "Life on Mars?" is the official name for the topic, and the most common and natural. We also have a guideline on the policy page for when there are small details, such as punctuation, which serve to disambiguate. "The general approach is that whatever readers might type in the search box, they are guided as swiftly as possible to the topic they might reasonably be expected to be looking for..." Example: Airplane and Airplane! SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 10:16, 14 September 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose. As pointed out above there is no question mark on the artwork, so comparison with Airplane! is not appropriate. I am further reminded that, although Airplane might take an exclamation mark, the phrase "Life on Mars" would not take a question mark because there is no question implied. --Richhoncho (talk) 20:24, 14 September 2015 (UTC)

@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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

• Comment a search on "life on mars" site:davidbowie.com seems to support "Life on Mars?" but shows that "Life on Mars" can be used within sentences. Ping @Richhoncho: GregKaye 10:36, 17 September 2015 (UTC)
• Oppose - I'm a bit confused on why the question mark's on the CD yet not on the actual album and plus it doesn't seem to be released as such ? .. Maybe someone just made a typo and it went unnoticed lol, Anyway don't see much point adding it. –Davey2010^Talk 01:58, 18 September 2015 (UTC)
• Be consistent. The article uses "?" throughout. So we should either change the article title to Life on Mars? (no disambiguation required), or we should remove the "?" from the body of the article. Right now it looks silly. A fuller survey of secondary sources (not just album covers) would be helpful. Dohn joe (talk) 14:00, 18 September 2015 (UTC)

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)

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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

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)

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BBC Radio 2 documentary

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)

Song's title

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)

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)

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)

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)

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

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)

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)