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Fantastic Voyage

Released: 25 May 1979

Available on: Lodger A Reality Tour

‘Fantastic Voyage’ is the opening song on Lodger , David Bowie’s 13th studio album. It is based on the same chord structure as ‘Boys Keep Swinging’ .

It’s almost quaint, this one. It has a strong feel of the Fifties variety show to it. A cavil in passing – if I’d been in the position of the mid-Sixties Rolling Stones, I definitely would have gone on the Sunday Night At The London Palladium show’s revolving stage. They had refused to stand on the roundabout with the other acts at the end of the show, as it didn’t fit in with their rebellious image. I was surprised to read that the American entertainer Judy Garland also refused a whirl, as she was too emotionally upset. Who knew? I would have been shyly clawing my way past Jimmy Tarbuck to get on. I remember my mother being excited about the first time this show appeared on television in 1955. My father had bought our set for Princess Elizabeth’s coronation in 1953 and it had opened up a new world for us. Guy Mitchell was apparently an exciting part of this world as my mother went all schoolgirl when he came on screen and sang ‘She Wears Red Feathers (And A Hula Hula Skirt)’… Thinking about it, Guy Mitchell would have done this song proud.

Well, that is definitely pop. What’s interesting about that is the logistics. We played the same chord sequence four different ways and the same thing exactly occurs elsewhere on the album. You’ve got to spot it. I wanted to put some sort of point of view forward that was in the narrative fashion right at the front of the album. It starts veering off to the obscure after this, but it’s a pretty straightforward song about how I feel, in a very old-fashioned romantic fashion. One feels constantly that so many things are out of our own control and it’s just this infuriating thing that you don’t want to have their depression ruling your life or dictating how you will wake up each morning.

‘Fantastic Voyage’ combines the personal and the political. Written during the Cold War, its reference to missiles, fatherless victims and genocide were clearly inspired by the political tensions of the time, but there is also a warmth and empathy throughout: Bowie sings tenderly of loyalty, dignity, and resisting depression. The helplessness and fatalism of his everymen stood in contrast to the leaders who waged war and placed civilisations in peril, and Bowie was clear upon whose side he was.

It’s a pretty straightforward song about how I feel in a very old-fashioned romantic fashion. One feels constantly that so many things are out of our own control, and it’s just this infuriating thing that you don’t want to have their depression ruling your life or dictating how you will wake up each morning.

The title may have been inspired by the 1966 American sci-fi film of the same name, in which miniaturisation technology developed by American and Soviet Union military forces is used to save the life of a dissident scientist. Isaac Asimov wrote the novelisation, which was published six months before the film.

The chords of ‘Fantastic Voyage’ were almost the same as those for another Lodger song, ‘Boys Keep Swinging’. The two songs follow a nearly identical sequence, although a B flat chord in ‘Boys Keep Swinging’ was amended to a G minor on ‘Fantastic Voyage’.

By changing the production, tempo, and melody, few noticed the similarity. During the Lodger sessions a third song was written using the same chords, but was left unfinished.

‘Fantastic Voyage’ was one of three songs written with the same exact chord changes. It was an experiment. Always experimenting. ‘Boys Keep Swinging’: that’s the same changes and structure. Then there’s a third which didn’t make the album: not finished.

It was a trick Bowie had previously deployed on ‘Stay’ , the backing of which was based on ‘John, I’m Only Dancing (Again)’ . The best-known instance, however, is probably the two versions of ‘It’s No Game’ on Scary Monsters… And Super Creeps , which had the same melody and backing track, but were made to sound quite different through the performance and production.

This song’s chord structure appeared on the album Lodger in two forms. First, as it appears here and then further in as ‘Boys Keep Swinging’ (they were men’s dresses, I tell you). Both the tempo and top-line melody are rewritten. I did this again on the album Scary Monsters… And Super Creeps . It proved nothing.

This was not the only instance on Lodger of song recycling. ‘Red Money’ used the backing track of Iggy Pop’s ‘Sister Midnight’ , co-written by Bowie and Carlos Alomar, and recorded for Pop’s 1977 album The Idiot .

Another Lodger song, ‘Move On’ , was based on ‘All The Young Dudes’ . Bowie played the 1972 song backwards and asked guitarist Carlos Alomar to write down the chords. He then instructed the studio musicians to play the new sequences.

‘Fantastic Voyage’ could quite easily have turned up on Hunky Dory . This album seems to contain things from lots of different areas of my career.”

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Fantasic Voyage by David Bowie

Songfacts®:

• In this song, Bowie fears the end of the world is nigh, yet he still sings of his faith in humanity: "In the event that this fantastic voyage should turn to erosion and we never get old, remember it's true, dignity is valuable, but our lives are valuable too." It was written around the time there was a severe deterioration in relations between the West and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.
• David Bowie described this in the Mail on Sunday June 29, 2008 as "almost quaint, this one. It has a strong feel of the '50s variety show to it." Bowie added in the same interview that this song's chord structure appeared on the Lodger album in two forms. "First, as it appears here and then further in as ' Boys Keep Swinging .' Both the tempo and top-line melody are rewritten."
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Fantastic Voyage: New Sounds For The European Canon 1977-1981

Bowie goes Berlin, music quakes – here’s the fall-out

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The concept behind Fantastic Voyage , compiled by Bob Stanley of St Etienne and Jason Wood from the British Film Institute , is simple: tracking the two-way flow of influence between David Bowie ’s Berlin-era albums and the German electronic and avant-rock that informed Bowie’s thinking at the time. It’s a smart conceit for a compilation, something that Stanley in particular has become exceptionally good at over the past decade. Indeed, the recent string of collections he’s pulled together for Ace Records are often sensitive mappings of discrete cultural scenes or imagined aesthetic collisions; while 2020’s Cafe Exil: New Adventures In European Music 1972-1980 pieced together what Bowie and Iggy might have been listening to in their favourite Kreuzberg haunt.

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It’s not hard to see the ways that Fantastic Voyage’s remit can be stretched, massaged and morphed. Some of the names here are to be expected – Holger Czukay , Cabaret Voltaire , The Associates – but some may land, initially, as quite a surprise: Daryl Hall , Peter Gabriel . It’s the latter inclusions that make Fantastic Voyage more valuable than a predictable hipster’s selection of ‘the right records’. Treating the Bowie-Berlin creative nexus as pliable material, Stanley and Wood offer other ways of thinking about how electronic music and rock went mutually mutant in the early ’80s.

The Hall contribution is one of the compilation’s most gorgeous moments: “ The Farther Away I Am ” is a late-night hymn, an intimist’s dream of a song, taken from his album Sacred Songs . Recorded in 1977 but not released until 1980, Sacred Songs is Hall’s masterpiece, made in collaboration with Robert Fripp . Indeed, Fripp understandably hovers over Fantastic Voyage as a kind of éminence grise: the taut and itchy “ Exposure ”, from Fripp’s album of the same name, is also included here, and he turns up on guitar on Peter Gabriel’s tortured “ No Self Control ”.

Gabriel’s contribution precedes the song that feels like Fantastic Voyage’s core, The Walker Brothers ’ “ Nite Flights ”. The moment where Scott Walker truly unshackles himself from the brothers’ lush, brooding balladry and goes fully existential, it’s still startling, 40 years on, a stealthy machine of a song, a warped hybrid of krautrock’s rhythmic monotony and stylised art-rock. Bowie’s “ Heroes ” was a reference point for Walker while recording his contributions to “Nite Flights”’s attendant album, and Bowie would repay the favour, decades later, covering it on 1993’s Black Tie White Noise .

Lest Fantastic Voyage come across as an exercise of reinforcing myths, the veneration of a gang of white intellectuals exoticising Berlin’s post-war ruins, Stanley and Wood are careful to bring in other voices. One of the highlights of Fantastic Voyage is the plasmic drift of Brigitte Fontaine and Areski ’s “ Patriarcat ”; another is Isabelle Mayereu ’s “ On A Trouvé… ”, from her chanson curio, Des Mot Étranges… ; Grauzone ’s “ Eisbar ” still feels like a beautiful anomaly in the landscape. And that’s the great art of Fantastic Voyage – drawing up new plans that allow different contexts for such strange, glorious architectures.

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76 episodes

Join brothers Jesse and John on a "fantastic voyage" through the career of David Bowie. Twitter: @bowiepodcast Instagram: bowiepodcast Intro Music by Jesse & John Outro Music by Jesse Winnipeg, MB

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Customer Reviews

Fantastic voyage.

A fantastic podcast! These guys provide a deep dive into David Bowie’s songs and career with incredible insight into both lyrics and music. Two very well-spoken and highly intelligent brothers and old souls who again and again impress and provide epiphanies to this lifelong Bowie fan who discovered and started analyzing DB music well before they were born! Kudos, Jesse and John…you’re the real deal!

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Fantastic Voyage

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Lyrics submitted by saturnine

Fantastic Voyage Lyrics as written by BRIAN ENO, DAVID BOWIE

Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, TINTORETTO MUSIC, Universal Music Publishing Group

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Bowie himself has written that this song was related to the threat of nuclear holocaust, which in 1797, was very real indeed. He has stated that the "depression" referred to, was that of world leaders who seemed to be imposnig their misery on the rest of society. "We'll get by I suppose" only barely raises the spirits in this otherwise very downbeat, gentle song.

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1977, you mean?!

1979, I think. That was the year Lodger was released.

@milkshock , 1797 was a scary year for atom bombs. And getting run over by a train at 3 mph :-)

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1797 was a crazy year.

@milkshock 1797? You mean 1979? XD

Yeah....it's about the fear of nuclear war

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This songs seems to be talking about suicide. The fantastic voyage is life. If it ends "we never get old". The depression part could be referencing his half-brother who was institutionalized and commited suicide (although this happened in 1985, after the song was written). Regardless of who the song is about, it seems to be a plea for choosing life and dealing with depression and violent behaviors.

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@zaphod_borg just opened myself an account to appreciate this opinion <3

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