Song title: (We Were) The Spiders From Mars
Music by: Jim Brook
Lyrics by: Jim Brook
Artist: Cellphone
Hi. I’m Jim Brook from London and I’ve been a participant in the HCSC every year since 2014. I used to record my songs on my mobile – hence the name Cellphone – but these days it’s done on GarageBand.
My song this year, (We Were) The Spiders From Mars, was inspired by the 50th anniversary of the release of the classic David Bowie album, The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Not only is it my favourite album of all time, it also marked the beginning of my guitar-playing journey.
It’s all thanks to a kid at university called Nick, who had an acoustic guitar and a Bowie songbook with simplified versions of the chords. (I’m still playing easy chords!) Evening after evening we would do Bowie impressions, and I’ve tried to come at my song from the viewpoint of the fans who, like us, would have loved to be a Spider from Mars. Anybody familiar with the Ziggy Stardust album will notice that I’ve unashamedly woven several references from the songs into my lyrics.
I look forward to hearing the other songs in this year’s HCSC and wish all the entrants the very best of luck.
(We Were) The Spiders From Mars
We all said, “Who’s that guy?”
We all said, “Who’s that guy?”
All the boys wanted to be him.
All the girls wanted to be with him.
Everyone wanted to be a Spider from Mars.
And we played guitar.
Yeah, we played guitar.
We were the Spiders from Mars.
We all said, “Who’s that guy?”
We all said, “Who’s that guy?”
Cool as a cat in a fire,
He was our leper messiah,
Making us feel alive with his cosmic jive.
And we played guitar.
Yeah, we played guitar.
We were the Spiders from Mars.
Ooh, how we sighed!
It was wonderful!
Oh, we fell in love all right!
Yeah, we were rock n roll stars!
We all said, “Who’s that guy who can talk to the nobody people?”
We all said, “Who’s that guy with the soul of a flaming dove?”
Oh, it ain’t easy to fight when your
dashed against the wall.
Oh, but we knew that he loved us all.
And we played guitar.
Yeah, we played guitar.
We were the Spiders from Mars.
(“I love, I love, I love you all.”)