Laura from Winthrop texted this idea in for a Forgotten 45!
Peter Schilling – Major Tom (Coming Home)
Peter Schilling, a German singer/songwriter, released “Major Tom [völlig losgelöst] (“completely detached”) in January on 1983 on his album, ‘An Error In The System’. This is certainly his biggest hit anywhere in the world and certainly the only way Americans know him.
While David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” has a main character by the name of Major Tom, who is an astronaut that becomes untethered from his space ship and loses connection with ground control and floats off into space, Peter Schilling says that his “Major Tom” wasn’t supposed to be a new version of Bowie’s song, or related to his Major Tom at all…
Yeah….. ok.
Same name, same scenario, same ending….
Here’s my other leg, pull it too.
The German version topped charts in German speaking parts of Europe, while the English version wasn’t released until nine months later in the U.S., Canada and South Africa. It was #1 in Canada, #4 in S.A. but peaked only at #14 in the states.
