I’m not sure I’ve ever seen video of David Bowie before with long hair and without any of the Ziggy Stardust makeup, clothes or persona. It’s both odd and interesting at the same time! Released on July 11, 1969, “Space Oddity” became Bowie’s first Top 5 hit in the United Kingdom and also earned him a prestigious Ivor Novello Award in England. The video below shows him performing the song LIVE at the award ceremonies in autumn 1969. It also marked his television debut!

Here’s more from the YouTube description:

Although he released an album and numerous singles earlier, David Bowie first caught the eye and ear of the public in the autumn of 1969, when his space-age mini-melodrama “Space Oddity” reached the top five of the UK singles chart. After a three-year period of experimentation he re-emerged in 1972 during the glam-rock era as a flamboyant, androgynous alter ego Ziggy Stardust, spearheaded by the hit single “Starman” and the album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. The relatively short-lived Ziggy persona epitomized a career often marked by musical innovation, reinvention and striking visual presentation.

Here’s a little more in-depth analysis of the song from Guitar Player:

“Space Oddity”’s production is notable for its blend of Bowie’s acoustic 12-string—a signature part of his sound at this point in his career—and electronics, including a Mellotron (played by Rick Wakeman, who would eventually join British prog-rockers Yes) and a Stylophone, a miniature ribbon-style keyboard played with a stylus. Bowie was a fan of the Stylophone and played it on “Space Oddity,” as well as on some of his late-career albums, including 2002’s Heathen.

Though “Space Oddity” was released five days before the launch of Apollo 11, given the fatal outcome of the song’s protagonist the BBC would not play it until the crew had safely returned to Earth. The song reached the Top 5 in the U.K., but it stalled at 124 in the U.S. Upon its reissue in 1972, it became Bowie’s first single to reach the top of the charts in the U.K. and subsequently reached Number 15 on the Billboard Hot 100