Is There Life on Mars?

"Is There Life on Mars?" by Ineffable

Dressup entry

Is There Life on Mars?

Postby Ineffable » Mon Mar 28, 2016 2:24 pm

Attempting to hopefully be vaguely reminiscent of Life on Mars by David Bowie (which I first heard as a cover by Aurora). ^_^; The clutter is intentional, to an extent. According to Wikipedia, David Bowie referred to it as a love song during a live concert, but the only interpretation I'm confident of is that it talks about escapism and possibly disillusionment in a melancholic way.

The rest of this description is me cheating and explaining why I put some of the things I did, a lot of which are symbolic and sort-of-possibly-but-only-kind-of relevant to how most people might interpret the song, since they're improvised based on what items I have, for obvious reasons.

[...]
To the girl with the mousy hair
[...]
It's on America's tortured brow
That Mickey Mouse has grown up a cow
Now the workers have struck for fame
'Cause 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
[...]
But the film is a saddening bore
For she's lived it ten times or more
She could spit in the eyes of fools
As they ask her to focus on
[...]


Sheep are commonly associated with blindly following due to their herding behavior, and mobiles might be associated with babies and sleeping. Sleeping happens when you're weary and/or bored. All the floating and hanging creatures and objects is also meant to reference the titular line of the song and the concept of being "spacey" (and the opposite of "down-to-earth").

The bouquet contains aster, a flower named for stars; hydrangea, which is sometimes purportedly associated with vanity and boastfulness; a snapdragon, which can symbolize deception and presumption in a negative context; and a daffodil, which seems to have been used often in the past as a sort of "get well soon" flower or a wish for a cure. There is also moss, which grows on things that sit still for a long time (or, at least, is often used that way on television, haha...); a wilted rose draped over the mouse's right ear; and purple crocus flowers growing around it/her, which, according to one website, represent "dignity, pride, and success" -- also a reference to another line from the song I didn't bother to include in the quote. The monkey is the closest I can get to a clown, and the rabbit-on-a-cloud might be the/one of the observer/s that seem to exist at various points in the song.

I used a search engine to find almost all of the flower-related symbolism. I think the possible themes of escapism and depression/disillusionment might exist as the result of a depressing event such as losing one's lover, but that's just my guess, and the song has such a wide array of imagery that it's probably best taken to mean whatever is meaningful to any individual listener.

I wish I could have come up with a better actual dress-up for all that silly, pretentious-sounding cheating I just did by describing most of the symbols I used (because they were all such far stretches...), but this will have to do. If you read through all this, kudos to you! Because I'm horrible at being succinct. P:

(Also, sorry if this is unfitting for a CS dress-up. I thought it'd be nice practice, since I like reading and writing as a hobby on the side, and would like to know more about literary symbols. That, and the flower items are so shiny and new, as is the song for me because I only just heard it today for the first time. Actually submitting it might have been a mistake, but I probably wouldn't have written anything otherwise and, as such, it wouldn't have been much of an exercise.)
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