Rocket man what does it mean

One Comment Leave a Reply Rumor has it that Rocket Man was written after Elton and Harry Nilsson watched the moon landing……they made a friendly wager that they could write a better song than the other about space travel.

Log in to Reply. Leave a Reply Cancel reply Only members can comment. Remember Me. Lost your password? JavaScript seems to be disabled in your browser. For the best experience on our site, be sure to turn on Javascript in your browser. At first glance, "Rocket Man" might not seem like a song worthy of very close critical attention.

Catchy and fun, yes, groundbreaking and original… maybe not so much. And in terms of Elton John's career, the song was less a radical turning point than an incremental advance on previous work. John's hit "Your Song" was already on the radio. He would have still been a star, even if "Rocket Man" had never come along. In fact, "Rocket Man" might seem most significant as an artifact of pop culture, thanks to William Shatner's hilarious spoken-word cover at the Science Fiction Awards.

Shatner's epic performance was more recently spoofed on Famiy Guy. So then, what is so special about "Rocket Man? People often speak of generations and musical styles in terms of decades.

The '60s, it's easy to imagine, were The Beatles, and the '70s were all about disco. Over the span of his four-decade, history-making career, Elton John has performed one timeless song after the other. Prior to the film's use of the tune, John and his lyricist partner Bernie Taupin have addressed its meaning in the past, as well as its surprising inspiration.

The man ventures into space for three months at a time and returns to earth for only a few short days to see his wife and son, deeply torn between his love of space and his family. The song imagines what his long adventures, while filled with loneliness, would be like. Mars, Venus and Jupiter had been visited by Rocket men Amazing things were learned by Rocket men who went to Venus.

The piece appears to have been syndicated in various newspapers under the heading "Uncle Ray's Corner. Other instances of the phrase "rocket man" or "rocket men" appear in other editions of "Uncle Ray's Corner. The author appears to be Ramon Peyton Coffman , a children's science fiction writer best known for this syndicated daily column.

A biographical passage from The University of Wisconsin's alumni magazine in offers a description of his work. It describes him as "the best known and most widely read children's author in America," which, if true, might serve as an argument that his use was influential among his contemporary science fiction writers. For 17 years Mr. Coffman has been writ- ing his column for readers from years of age, and today he is the best known and most widely read children's author in America. In more than five and a half million homes in America "Uncle Ray" is a daily visitor, a counselor and friend as he writes of science, history, travel and great men.

His columns have a dual purpose-to entertain and to teach his young readers. To answer the questions, it does appear that the original meaning dates from the mid's and holds the meaning described in ODO definition 1. It also seems likely that the popularity of the term in the s was indeed a result of uses in science fiction. Sign up to join this community. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top.