Released: 1980
Why's it part of the "Rock Box" playlist?: It's mainly due to its appearance at the end of the first episode of the impressively soundtracked British cop show Ashes to Ashes, a sequel to the original version of Life on Mars that ran on BBC One from 2008 to 2010 and like the original, left a present-day British cop stranded in the past (this time, it was Keeley Hawes' Alex Drake, trapped in both 1981 and huge Dynasty shoulder pads).
From an Ashes to Ashes first-season soundtrack album customer review at the British version of Amazon.com, which notes that "Same Old Scene" isn't on the album:
But most mystifyingly, the one track which for me was as much the theme of the series as Bowie's 'Ashes To Ashes' itself - Roxy Music's 'Same Old Scene' - is also not included. This track was used in the ultra-cool sequence at the end of episode one which contained virtually no dialogue. The piece of music that the show's producers were originally going to use for this was 'Imagine' by John Lennon; considering how much the mood of the sequence would have been altered if they had gone ahead, it becomes clear how essential this Roxy Music song actually was in setting up the dark, brooding, sexually charged atmosphere so successfully evoked.BBC America has yet to air Ashes to Ashes' third and final season, which I haven't seen yet, so unless I click to Wikipedia to read the spoilers, I have no way of knowing if Ashes to Ashes ended in a brilliant, David Bowie-scored way like the original Life on Mars did or in a batshit-crazy, completely random, "Poochie died on the way back to his home planet"-style way like the American Life on Mars did. Apparently, decades-old reruns of Star Trek: The Next Generation are a bigger priority to BBC America (last time I checked, that show's not British).
All the other "Rock Box" Tracks of the Day from this week:
The Dubliners, "The Rocky Road to Dublin"
Pixies, "Where Is My Mind?"
The Skyflakes, "Talk About Today"
The Jackson 5, "Never Can Say Goodbye"
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