Featuring the story of a character unofficially related to "Major Tom", an astronaut depicted in British musician David Bowie's 1969 song "Space Oddity" and other releases, Schilling's track describes a protagonist who leaves Earth and begins drifting out into outer space as radio contact breaks off with his ground control team.

The song is one of multiple singles by various artists with a pop music related style influenced by the cultural roboticism associated with Berlin, Germany.

[3] It is specifically a part of the "Neue Deutsche Welle" (NDW), a social movement in the arts within German society, and is one of its pieces that crossed over into the popular culture of other nations.

The song describes a calm, reflective astronaut known as Major Tom that's detached from the psychological stress of his colleagues, who spend a significant amount of time engaging in certain scientific experiments about which he feels uncertain.

One line describes the Major as realizing that "mich führt hier ein Licht durch das All" or "a light now guides me through space".

[6] During the UEFA Championship in the summer 2024, the original version of "Major Tom" re-entered the top ten of the German singles chart after more than 40 years.