Steve Miller – Space Cowboy

I’m getting into this pre-fame hits, Steve Miller. The music was a little more edgier and deeper. I think Miller’s hits have been a huge victim of radio overplay and I realize that is not his fault…doesn’t mean “Jet Airliner” is not any good…we have sometimes heard those songs too much. I have songs like that…but give it some time and I can listen to them again.

In the first line of this song, he references his first real hit, Living In The USA, and he even brings in some musical elements from it. I like the bottom-end riff that drives this song. He would recycle riffs and phrases at times. The phrase “Some call me the Space Cowboy” would later be referenced in Miller’s massive 1973 hit, “The Joker”. This era of the Steve Miller Band should have received more attention in real-time. The talent he had in that band was outstanding.

The music on this album could be labeled as blues and psychedelic in some ways considering the era it was recorded in. The title itself was partly because of the countercultural movement, space exploration going on that year, and free-thinking of the American West.

His earlier songs have more of a blues feel. The former members of his band have included Boz Scaggs, Nicky Hopkins, Doug Clifford (CCR drummer), Ross Valory, Lonnie Turner, and about a page more of many more names.

The song was on The Steve Miller Band’s 1969 album Brave New World, which peaked at a respectable #22 on the Billboard Album Charts and #38 in Canada. This is the same album that featured My Dark Hour, a collaboration between Miller and Paul McCartney.

Glyn Johns produced this album and four albums altogether for Steve Miller. They worked great together. Glyn was a busy man at the time. While he was finishing up this album he would go and work on Let It Be and also cross the hall at Olympic and work on the Stones album Let It Bleed as a sound engineer. He also helped George Harrison produce an album by Billy Preston…all of these projects were at the same time.

Glyn Johns: I returned to California to start the Steve Miller Band’s third album, Brave New World. We were getting on fine until I got a call from The Beatles, asking if Steve would let me go for a couple of weeks, to return home to London to do some sessions for what became Abbey Road. They made him an offer he could not refuse, saying they would pay all the expenses incurred by the delay to his recording schedule. So the band got to hang out in a hotel in L.A. courtesy of The Beatles, while I disappeared back to London for what proved to be a somewhat grueling few days.

I went straight from the plane to Apple for a couple of days, and then to Olympic Studios for an all-night session with the Stones till six a.m. Then to Apple again in the afternoon before going on to the Albert Hall that evening to record Jimi Hendrix in concert.

Space Cowboy

I told you ’bout living in the U.S. of A.
Don’t you know that I’m a gangster of love
Let me tell you people that I found a new way
And I’m tired of all this talk about love
And the same old story with a new set of words
About the good and the bad and the poor
And the times keep on changin’
So I’m keepin’ on top
Of every fat cat who walks through my door

I’m a space cowboy
Bet you weren’t ready for that
I’m a space cowboy
I’m sure you know where it’s at
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

I was born on this rock
And I’ve been travelin’ through space
Since the moment I first realized
What all you fast talkin’ cats would do if you could
You know, I’m ready for the final surprise
There ain’t no way around it
Ain’t nothing to say
That’s gonna satisfy my soul deep inside
All the prayers and surveyors
Keep the whole place uptight
While it keeps on gettin’ darker outside

I’m a space cowboy
Bet you weren’t ready for that
I’m a space cowboy
I’m sure you know where it’s at
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

I see the show downs, slow downs, lost and found, turn arounds
The boys in the military shirts
I keep my eyes on the prize, on the long fallen skies
And I don’t let my friends get hurt
All you back room schemers, small trip dreamers
Better find something new to say
Cause you’re the same old story
It’s the same old crime
And you got some heavy dues to pay

I’m a space cowboy
Bet you weren’t ready for that
I’m a space cowboy
I’m sure you know where it’s at
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

…

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

40 thoughts on “Steve Miller – Space Cowboy”

  8. I think of the Steve Miller Band in a similar vein to Fleetwood Mac – the best era was before pop stardom. Miller started with a band called The Ardells with Boz Scaggs and Ben Sidran (who went on to become a jazz pianist and host of an NPR jazz radio program). Both were part of the early Steve Miller Band as well. (Another case of too much talent for one band?)

    Miller moved to Chicago and worked with Paul Butterfield as well as Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, and Buddy Guy. He formed a band with Butterfield’s keyboardist Barry Goldberg. This was all before the Steve Miller Band moved to San Francisco.

    His godfather is Les Paul. And Tracy Nelson’s signature tune “Down So Low” was written about her breakup with Miller.

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    1. I agree with you about this era….it was better to me than the pop era.
      He was well connected…I think he had the biggest advance at the time given to an unknown before he recorded anything.
      He certainly had the roots.

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    1. He wasn’t as known that is for sure…his talent in that band was something else…of course he always kept great players around.

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  10. I can get behind your two picks today. The first song I heard from the Space Cowboy was ‘Space Cowboy’. Instant love. What a great groove then a tasty guitar lick. His vocal delivery and lyrics worked for me. Oh yeah those space sounds add a subtle not from this earth vibe.

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  14. Great song. I know his hits are overplayed, but they don’t bother me as much as others. The only one that really bugs me is “Abracadabra”. I didn’t mind it when it came out, but now I can’t stand it. Now, “We Will Rock You”, or “Pour Some Sugar On Me”, I want to break the radio.

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  15. I’m a Steve Miller fan. I think he is one of the great underrated rock guitarist. He is a great technician that can dip into any style of playing.

    The Joker is a cool song. It’s got a T-Rex vibe that I dig. It’s one of the handful or rock tunes that I would play as a dance DJ. It got people on the dance floor that had sat on their hands all night. People wouldn’t dance to it, but it was like a community song where every one would do a sing a long and pop bottles. Tiny Dancer and Last Dance With Mary Jane and Paradise by the Dashboard Light were a few of the other tunes like that.

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      1. Right. Space Cowboy’s is, like you say, more indicative of his earlier works. I didn’t realize that Sailor was so early–I always thought it was The Steve Miller Bands first album. I thought Brave New World was the second album…anyway, I’m more familiar with the Joker era and that run he had in the mid 70s.

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      2. Oh yea I am as well….thhat is the era that I knew. This era was totally different…very close like someone said the difference in Fleetwood Mac early and later.

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  17. Pingback: Steve Miller – Space Cowboy – MobsterTiger

  18. Love me some Steve Miller. Been forever since hearing this one. Steve’s definitely underrated, and I think it does have something to do with his hits being overplayed. The man can play anything.

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  19. Miller just tours around not he back of the Greatest Hits set that came out back in 77/78 which I even own. hahaha
    Never knew there was an actual song called Space Cowboy, Max. Now I know as I refer to Miller as the Space Cowboy because of that opening line in The Joker…

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