10 Stellar Songs About Space

4. Spaceman €” Harry Nilsson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3j8LDZreZ7M When in 1969 the U.S.A. beat the Soviet Union in the epic space race by sticking a man on moon, the feeling of pride that flooded American minds was met with the skepticism of many. So men put a man on the Moon €” now what? "I wanted to be a spaceman, that's what I wanted to be. But now that I am a spaceman, nobody cares about me". Harry Nilsson's 1972 single seemed to anticipate what, after many decades, seems to be a generalised perception of NASA, an institution that chews through federal budgets in the billions of dollars but still struggles to justify its existence through tangible merits. In a typical Harry Nilsson move, he uses the first person to tackle an issue from the angle that is the least common; in this case, that of the astronaut, and a depressed one, at that. If we all think space exploration is fascinating, there's Harry Nilsson to remind us that it may well just be absurd. We'll see!