Whoever has seen both shows can agree that Breaking Bad and The Americans are two of the best dramas of the last ten years. Both shows are firmly rooted in the anti hero sub genre but they have a smaller thing in common: a love for Major Tom.
Peter Schilling's 1983 homage to David Bowie is so eighties you should only listen to it with shoulder pads. In a time where the bass mean't more than getting turned up on the dancefloor, Major Tom is propelled like a rocket by it.
It's a pop song with a lot to say: talking about the distance between lovers, both symbolically, and literally, as you can't get further away from someone than space. It's a proper story with high stakes, dramtic highs, and lows, that is slick enouigh to go like gangbusters when The Americans (the song appears in the show set in 1983) needs a montage that encompasses spywork, and a family tradition like teaching you daughter how to drive, and in Breaking Bad, well, Gill had good taste.
