I'm kind of obsessed with the bridge of this tune (at 3:33).

It has a really cool asymmetrical structure

with two different forms overlapping. I decided to write it down just for fun and to see exactly how it all
fits together formally. Naturally, it's even cooler and deeper than I realized. Pardon me if this gets a
little technical, I just want to share my appreciation of this thing Bowie wrote that I think is rad.

The underlying form of the bridge, played by the rhythm section and heard intermittently throughout
the tune, is a repeating three-bar progression (already an unusual length), G minor, F major, C minor,
with a keyboard motive in two slightly different and alternating variants - represented by a and b. This
three-bar structure is repeated seven times in the bridge:
abababa

On top of this is the vocal line, a simple melodic pattern, repeated with variations. "My mother
says/To get things done/You'd better not mess/With Major Tom" - each line of the lyric uses the same
three-note line but it shifted up a step whenever the G minor chord occurs. The line as it originally
appears is A, the same line a step up is B. This would sound predictable but for two things: First,
while the underlying harmonic form is a three-bar pattern, the lyrical verse has four lines and occurs
over four measures, so we hear it in a four-bar pattern and a different line of the lyric is shifted a step
up each time the verse repeats, thus:
ABAA BAAB AABA ABAA

Second, adding to the asymmetry and further disguising the pattern, the vocal line doesn't start until
bar 6 of the bridge - on the third chord of the three-chord progression. So its not immediately
obvious that the change in the melodic line can be easily predicted in a three-bar pattern right along
with the chords. What we end up with as a three-bar melodic pattern (chords underneath) is:
A BAA BAA BAA BAA BAA
C GFC GFC GFC GFC GFC

But the main thing is that, while we can hold onto the instrumental three-bar pattern set up before the
vocal line comes in, the way we hear the vocal melody is inevitably in terms of the repeating four-line
lyrical verse, despite the fact that in melodic terms, it cleaves totally to the instrumental pattern.
When I first started looking at this, I thought the two overlapping patterns were vocals vs.
instruments. But as it turns out, its lyrics vs. everything else, including the vocal melody itself.

Below is all how it all falls together. Every three bars I indicate the beginning of the a or b variant. If
we are at the beginning of the repeated lyrical verse (i.e. at the beginning of the four-bar pattern),
there is a *. Next is the chord (Gm, F or Cm), and then (starting in the sixth bar) the vocal line A or B.
(This may not be the best way to format it, but Ive broken my brain looking at it and rearranging it at
this point.)

|a Gm |F |Cm |b Gm |F |Cm A |*a Gm B |F A |Cm A |*b Gm B |F A |Cm A |a Gm B |* F A |Cm A |b

Gm B |F A |* Cm A |a Gm B |F A |Cm A |
So, we have something that sounds simple, repetitive, fresh and unpredictable yet with a totally
logical structure underneath. Im pretty sure thats a hallmark of great composition! And this sense of
*musical* unpredictability is achieved not through melody, harmony or rhythm, but through the lyrical
pattern! (Which is of course a rhythm, just of a different kind than we normally expect to strongly
affect our musical perception.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNqo0kIR-TU