Did you realize the Flaming Lips loved David Bowie?? It wasn’t clear until today that Wayne Coyne and his Flaming Lips had any sort of admiration for David Bowie. Coyne’s outlandish stage presence and always-shifting aesthetic surely draw no inspiration from Bowie’s own tendency to reinvent himself. And yet Coyne performed at a Bowie tribute show in NYC earlier this month, where he sang “Life on Mars” from atop the shoulders of Chewbacca. That was weird enough, but now, just weeks later, they’ve released a studio version of “Space Oddity,” complete with a funereal video.
The video is actually pretty beautiful, and begins with nuns delivering flowers to a grave before the Flaming Lips perform to a church full of grey balloons. (Songs with distinct red balloon imagery were already taken, and Coyne must always pioneer, so they went with grey.) There’s no info as to whether or not this is part of a larger piece of Bowie work from the Lips, or if this is just a one-off to cap their recent foray into paying tribute to Bowie.
Watch the video below. I wonder, do the Flaming Lips put eyeliner on their tour rider?