Shortly before the Apollo 11 moon landing in 1969, the then 22-year-old David Bowie released his song Space Oddity as a single. It was already familiar to the public, having been used by the BBC to soundtrack its lunar coverage, and duly became the singer’s first hit, reaching No 5. At that early stage of his career, Bowie was still trying to negotiate his way out of the psych-pop, music-hall and blues stylings of his early incarnations. Tony Visconti, the producer who would help Bowie realise his 1970s masterpieces, turned down the track on the basis of a demo (although he worked on much of Space Oddity the album). The song was instead recorded with Gus Dudgeon at the controls, to an arrangement by Paul Buckmaster (this team would go on to score huge hits with Elton John); keyboards were played by Rick Wakeman; and the bassist was Herbie Flowers, who took the same role on

Lou Reed’s Bowie-produced Walk on the Wild Side three years later.

In 1969, Bowie needed a breakthrough. Yet nowhere on Space Oddity do you hear tentativeness. On the contrary, the assurance on display is breathtaking. A lyric — inspired by space exploration, say some; an allegory for drug addiction, contend others —that could, in almost anyone else’s hands, have seemed cheesy and wince-inducing became, thanks to Bowie’s performance and narrative pacing, the first intimation of his genius. Major Tom now enjoys a leading position in the rock-lyrics cast list, “floating round [his] tin can, far above the moon”, as Ground Control makes ever more desperate attempts to contact him. But it is the structure of the song that seems, still, so extraordinarily ambitious for a musician in his early twenties. The bleak early acoustic guitar figure gives way to major-key optimism, which cedes to nightmarish, claustrophobic strings, and an interlude of chopped guitar and hand-claps. Bowie wouldn’t have another hit until 1972’s Starman. In the intervening years, he refined his talent, which then exploded into glorious colour with Hunky Dory. The first rumblings of that explosion can be heard here.

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