David Bowie — Life On Mars? Truncated Live Storytellers Version

[Intro] There's so many stories I could tell you, I wish I could Have more time to tell you things like— The things I could tell you Oh, you don't know the half of it [Verse] It's on America's tortured brow That Mickey Mouse has grown up a cow And the workers have struck for fame For Lennon's on sale again See the mice in their million hordes From Ibiza to the Norfolk Broads Rule Britannia is out of bounds To my mother, my dog and clowns [Pre-Chorus] But the film is a saddening bore For I've lived it ten times or more It's about to be lived again As I ask you to focus on [Chorus] Sailors fighting in the dance hall Oh, man, look at those cavemen go It's the freakiest show Take a look at the lawman Beating up the wrong guy Oh, man, wonder if he'll ever know It's the best selling show Is there life on Mars? [Interlude] Thank you, Michael And welcome to Storytellers Well, I'd like to bring on, uh The rest of the artists who will be working with us tonight In ab— In about 1968 My then publisher, um, asked me if I would do, uh An English lyric for a French song that he was managing at the time It's called, um, "Comme d'habitude" Sorry, "Comme d'habitude" And I said I'd have a— a crack at it And I turned in The pitifully awful titled "Even A Fool Learns To Love" Which he rejected out of hand quite rightly, I feel And it passed on to Paul Anka who did his own English lyric And he called it, simply and effectively, "My Way" Uh, so, in retaliation, haha, yeah, right In retaliation, I wrote "Life On Mars" But then I got my comeuppance When miss Barbara Streisand decided to cover Mars Going through one of her slightly more lost periods She had her then-husband come hairdresser Produce and arrange and probably blow-dry it Anyway