It's a god awful small affair

“This song was so easy. Being young was easy.
A really beautiful day in the park, sitting on the steps of the bandstand.
’Sailors bap-bap-bap-bap-baaa-bap.’
An anomic (not a ‘gnomic’) heroine.
Middle-class ecstasy. ”

In 1969 David Robert Jones went to the Beckenham Recreation Ground bandstand and sat down to write a song.

Life on Mars? would go on to become one of his most iconic songs and one of the greatest of the 20th century.

It would also inspire me to cycle one of its lyrics, ‘From Ibiza to the Norfolk Broads.’

The following pictures and diary entries are the story of that trip.

Above are Bowie’s original handwritten lyrics, which would eventually evolve into the ones we know and love today. And below is the single which was eventually released in 1973.

And, of course, the finished song that inspired it all.

The iconic music video shot by Mick Rock.