mickey mouse has grown up a cow

[withlouis]

in the david bowie sone 'life on mars' there is the lyric "mickey mouse has grown up a cow" - anyone have any suggestions on the meaning of this unusual phrase

[andy hughes]

I've always thought it's a metaphor for the disillusion Bowie is explaining with regard to the 'American Dream'. Mickey is always seen as a symbol of the bright right and happy image of America, how bizarre therefore if he turned out to be a far less image-friendly creation when he 'grew up' - in other words when the 'Dream' turned sour. That's just my view - Mr Bowie, and indeed other visitors to the site may have other ideas.

[geofbob]

I was just about to offer the opinion that this was a metaphor of disillusion but andy hughes beat me to it! I would just add that in English slang "cow" is often used to describe something that is ugly or doesn't work properly - eg "this car's a bit of a cow".

[withlouis]

thanks guys, very interesting views... I can also see links maybe to a 'cash cow' or the golden calf

[mikewith]

Ask a disgruntled former Disney employee and they (we) will probably have slightly stronger views on the subject. But I don't think Bowie had us in mind!

[toecutter]

Don't know if this is the case here, but Bowie went through a stage of cutting up words and randomly rearranging them to produce lyrics, it could be that at play here.