Dear listeners,
I’m back — and so is the crew of the Artemis II lunar mission! Though we didn’t travel to equally distant places in our time away (they, farther from Earth than any other humans had ever traveled; me, simply to central Vermont), I thought I would celebrate our joint homecoming with a playlist of songs about the moon.
The Artemis mission was a refreshing, unifying focal point during these fractured times, and I thought this piece from The Times’s Ruth Graham articulated what made its journey so stirring: “For many people back home on Earth,” she wrote, “the mission was a brief reminder of the sheer scale of outer space, and a prompt to contemplate both our power and our powerlessness. It turned all of us into children at camp, lying supine and looking up at the stars, thinking very big thoughts.”
The moon has had a similar effect on generations of songwriters. Poetic, mysterious and often associated with melancholy, the moon has long been an evocative muse for musicians. In song, it has been blue, pink, silver, red and, of course, like a big pizza pie.
I tried to avoid some of the most popular moon songs on this playlist, in hopes of introducing you to some less familiar ones (from Neko Case, Megan Moroney and Arthur Russell), but I couldn’t resist the temptation to open it with David Bowie, and close it with … well, you’ll see.
Let’s play Twister, let’s play Risk,
Lindsay
Listen along while you read.
1. David Bowie: “Moonage Daydream”
Because “Space Oddity” would have been a little too obvious (and ominous), let’s instead blast off with another of David Bowie’s many songs about the cosmos: this kicky glam-rock anthem from his 1972 opus “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars.”
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
2. R.E.M.: “Man on the Moon”
Though not technically about the moon, this surreal and strangely sweet tribute to Andy Kaufman is one of my favorite R.E.M. singles, so it makes the list. I love the video, too, which features, among other lunar ephemera, a playful clip from Georges Méliès’s landmark 1902 short film “A Trip to the Moon.” (Of course, Méliès’s film would later inspire another ’90s MTV classic, the Smashing Pumpkins’ clip for “Tonight Tonight.”)
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
3. Cat Stevens: “Moonshadow”
This warm and optimistic tune from Cat Stevens’s 1971 album “Teaser and the Firecat” was one of my favorite songs as a child. Stevens, who now goes by Yusuf Islam, has said that it was partially inspired by an experience he had while on vacation in a remote part of Spain, where the moon was shining more brightly than he had ever seen. “I never got to see the moon on its own in the dark,” he said of his London upbringing, “there were always streetlamps. So there I was on the edge of the water on a beautiful night with the moon glowing, and suddenly I looked down and saw my shadow. I thought that was so cool, I’d never seen it before.”
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
4. Neko Case: “I Wish I Was the Moon”
Neko Case’s voice sounds positively opalescent on this ballad from the 2002 album “Blacklisted” — one of many Case songs that forges a deep connection with the natural world.
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
5. Megan Moroney: “Man on the Moon”
Megan Moroney comes up with a bright idea about how to handle a hot-and-cold suitor on this sassy, stomping country-rocker from her 2024 album “Am I Okay?”: “Come on, there’s gotta be a rocket somewhere taking off soon / I think it’s time we put another man on the moon.” Houston, we have a solution!
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
6. Bobby Womack: “Fly Me to the Moon (In Other Words)”
Surely you’ve heard Frank Sinatra’s iconic 1964 version of this standard — which was initially titled “In Other Words” until Peggy Lee, who recorded an early rendition, convinced the songwriter Bart Howard to officially change it. So let’s switch things up with this slightly lesser known one, from Bobby Womack’s 1968 debut album of the same name. “I put the verb ‘fly’ on the map,” Howard declared in a 1988 interview with The Times. “After the song, everyone said, ‘fly me here, fly me there.’ But I’m not in the dictionary of quotations where I think I belong.”
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
7. Arthur Russell: “This Is How We Walk on the Moon”
This gorgeous track from the great Arthur Russell’s posthumously released 1994 collection “Another Thought” sounds like I imagine music would on the moon: full of desolate empty space and thrilling surprises, adrift in unfamiliar gravity. (If you’re looking for a more upbeat and conventional Russell moon song, there’s a lovely one of those, too: “Big Moon.”)
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
8. Nina Simone: “Everyone’s Gone to the Moon”
Ever the expert interpreter, Nina Simone brings a finely calibrated combination of pathos and playfulness to this 1960s novelty song. “What will happen now?” she wonders as her performance reaches its denouement, making the situation sound downright apocalyptic: “Everyone’s gone to the moon!”
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
9. Pink Floyd: “Eclipse”
There was no way around it: I had to include something from “Dark Side of the Moon,” so let’s go out with its stirring finale. It ends with the Abbey Road Studios’ doorman Gerry O’Driscoll puncturing the grandeur with the quip, “There is no dark side in the moon, really. Matter of fact, it’s all dark.” We’ll see what the Artemis crew has to say about that, Gerry!
Listen on Spotify, Apple Music or YouTube
The Amplifier Playlist
“Moon Rocks! 9 Lunar Songs for the Artemis Crew” track list Track 1: David Bowie, “Moonage Daydream” Track 2: R.E.M., “Man on the Moon” Track 3: Cat Stevens, “Moonshadow” Track 4: Neko Case, “I Wish I Was the Moon” Track 5: Megan Moroney, “Man on the Moon” Track 6: Bobby Womack, “Fly Me to the Moon (In Other Words)” Track 7: Arthur Russell, “This Is How We Walk on the Moon” Track 8: Nina Simone, “Everyone’s Gone to the Moon” Track 9: Pink Floyd, “Eclipse”
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Lindsay Zoladz is a pop music critic for The Times and writes the music newsletter The Amplifier.
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