The Man Who Sold the World (song)

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"The Man Who Sold the World"
Song by David Bowie
from the album The Man Who Sold the World
Released4 November 1970 (1970-11-04)
Recorded4 & 22 May 1970
Studio Trident & Advision, London
Length3:55
Label Mercury
Songwriter(s) David Bowie
Producer(s) Tony Visconti
Official lyric video
"The Man Who Sold The World" [2020 Mix] on YouTube

"The Man Who Sold the World" is a song by the English singer-songwriter David Bowie. The title track of Bowie's third studio album, it was released in November 1970 in the US and in April 1971 in the UK by Mercury Records. Produced by Tony Visconti, it was recorded at Trident and Advision Studios in London in May 1970, towards the end of the album's sessions; Bowie recorded his vocal on the final day of mixing for the album, reflecting his generally dismissive attitude during the sessions. Musically, it is based around a "circular" guitar riff from Mick Ronson. Its lyrics are cryptic and evocative, being inspired by numerous poems including the 1899 "Antigonish" by William Hughes Mearns. Bowie's vocals are heavily "phased" throughout and have been described as "haunting".

Contents

"The Man Who Sold the World" went relatively unnoticed upon initial release in 1970. It was not released as a single by Bowie, though appeared as a B-side on the 1973 reissues of "Space Oddity" in the US and "Life on Mars?" in the UK by RCA Records. It was not until it was covered by the Scottish singer Lulu, whose 1974 recording, produced by Bowie and Ronson, peaked at No. 3 on the UK Singles Chart, that the song gained mainstream attention. In subsequent decades, the song has been covered by Scottish musician Midge Ure in 1982, and the American rock band Nirvana in 1993, whose performance of the song for the television programme MTV Unplugged introduced it to a new audience.

Retrospectively, Bowie's original recording has been named one of his best songs, with reviewers praising its haunting and unsettling atmosphere. Bowie performed the track live later in his career in different renditions than the original, including in a darker style during 1995's Outside Tour; a studio recording of the tour's arrangement appeared as a B-side of "Strangers When We Meet" in 1995. He again rerecorded the song in an acoustic arrangement in 1996 for the documentary ChangesNowBowie; this version was released in 2020 on the digital version of the EP Is It Any Wonder? and on the album ChangesNowBowie . The original recording has appeared on multiple compilation albums and has been remastered multiple times, including in 2015 as part of the box set Five Years (1969–1973) .

Composition and recording

The backing track for "The Man Who Sold the World" was recorded at Trident Studios in London on 4 May 1970, along with other album track "Running Gun Blues". At this point, the track was recorded under the working title "Saviour Machine" and did not contain the title phrase. [1] According to Kevin Cann, the lineup featured David Bowie on acoustic guitar, Mick Ronson on electric guitar, producer Tony Visconti on bass, Woody Woodmansey on drums and percussion, and Ralph Mace on Moog synthesiser; Ronson and Woodmansey would later become famous as a part of The Spiders from Mars. [2] According to Visconti, Bowie recorded his vocal on 22 May at Advision Studios, the final day of mixing for the album which, when travelling to Advision, Bowie had intended to name the album Metrobolist, a homage to Fritz Lang's 1927 film Metropolis . [3] [4] Chris O'Leary writes that Bowie wrote the lyrics in the reception area of the studio while Visconti waited at the mixing console. Once he finished, he quickly recorded his vocal, Visconti added a "flange" effect and mixed the track in a few hours, sending the tapes to the label later that night. [5] Bowie's last-minute addition frustrated Visconti, who recalled in 1977: "This was the beginning of [Bowie's] new style of writing – 'I can't be bothered until I have to'. When it was finished, on the last day of the last mix, I remember telling David, 'I've had it, I can't work like this anymore – I'm through' ... David was very disappointed." [6] This frustration was mostly due in part to his dissatisfaction with the recording sessions: he was mostly in charge of budget and production, as well as maintaining Bowie's interest in the project. Bowie later told BBC Radio 1's Stuart Grundy in 1976: "It was a nightmare, that album. I hated the actual process of making it." [7]

Bowie's original recording is described by author Peter Doggett as "enigmatic", while Nicholas Pegg describes it as giving an "unassuming air of pathos and menace". [8] [4] Doggett notes that the track contains none of the "metallic theatrics" that are found on the rest of the album. [9] Musically, the song opens with a repeating electric guitar riff from Ronson with an acoustic guitar from Bowie underneath it. [9] (The electric bass and Moog synthesiser notwithstanding) O'Leary writes that apart from Ronson's electric guitar, the song is primarily acoustic. [10] The chord structure is in the key of F with an A major chord "borrowed" from the D minor scale, [9] similar to fellow album track "All the Madmen". [10] Throughout the song, Visconti's bass "runs scales" under the chorus and a melody "elsewhere", Woodmansey plays "ecstatic" drum fills deep in the mix and Latin-style percussion "trembling" on the surface; Ronson uses feedback to introduce the chorus. [9] Bowie's vocals are "heavily phased" during the verses and briefly doubled (which, in Bowie's words, "came as some surprise"), compressed and again double-tracked during the chorus. [9] Douglas Wolk of Rolling Stone similarly calls Bowie's vocals and lyrics "haunting". [11] Pegg describes the guiro percussion as "sinister", the guitar riff "circular" and Bowie's vocal "ghostly". [4] The tracks ends with a coda, described by Doggett as a "haunting chorale" [9] and by O'Leary as "ominous"; it contains wordless vocals and is primarily in D minor. [12]

Title and lyrics

I guess I wrote it because there was a part of myself that I was looking for … that song for me always exemplified kind of how you feel when you're young, when you know there's a piece of yourself that you haven't really put together yet – you have this great searching, this great need to find out who you really are.

—David Bowie, in an interview for the BBC Radio 1 programme ChangesNowBowie (1997) [13]

According to Doggett, the song's title has multiple "precursors": including a 1949 Robert A. Heinlein science fiction novella The Man Who Sold the Moon; [14] a 1954 DC comic, "The Man Who Sold the Earth"; and a 1968 Brazilian political satire, The Man Who Bought the World. [8] However, none have a thematic link to Bowie's song. Pegg suggests that the title partly reflects an element of "self-disgust" Bowie has over the thought of "losing control" and "selling" his private life via profoundly personal music. [15]

The lyrics are noted as very cryptic and evocative; in Doggett's words, "begging but defying interpretation." [8] Like most of his work during this period, Bowie frequently avoided giving a direct interpretation of the lyrics; he later remarked that he felt it was unfair to give it to Lulu in 1973 because it dealt with the "devils and angels" within himself (she later confessed she "had no idea what it meant"). [4] Bowie once stated that the song was a sequel to "Space Oddity" which, in Doggett's words, is "an explanation designed to distract rather than enlighten", quoting the lyrics "Who knows? Not me". [8] The song's narrator has an encounter with a kind of doppelgänger, as suggested in the second chorus where "I never lost control" is replaced with "We never lost control". [16] Beyond this, the episode is unexplained: as James E. Perone wrote,

Bowie encounters the title character, but it is not clear just what the phrase means, or exactly who this man is. ... The main thing that the song does is to paint – however elusively – the title character as another example of the societal outcasts who populate the album. [17]

In common with a number of tracks on the album, the song's themes have been compared to the horror-fantasy works of H. P. Lovecraft. [18] The lyrics are also cited as reflecting Bowie's concerns with family problems and splintered or multiple personalities and are believed to have been partially inspired by the poem "Antigonish" by William Hughes Mearns: "As I was going up the stair / I met a man who wasn't there / He wasn't there again today / I wish, I wish he'd stay away..." [19] [20] By claiming he "wasn't there", Bowie "compounds" the identity crisis while believing his companion "died alone, a long, long time ago." [15] Pegg writes that the "defacement of the individual" and "dread of mortality" provide "grim counterparts" to the "immortal anguish" of fellow album track "The Supermen" and the meditations on "impermanence" and "rebirth" in "After All". [15]

Release and reception

"The Man Who Sold the World" was released as the eighth and penultimate track on Bowie's third studio album of the same name in November 1970 in the US and in April 1971 in the UK by Mercury Records. [21] [22] Although no singles were issued from the album, [23] the song appeared as the B-side on the 1973 reissue US single release of "Space Oddity" and UK single release of "Life on Mars?", both by RCA Records. [24] [25]

Retrospectively, Bowie's original recording has been named one of his best songs, with many praising the haunting and unsettling nature of the recording. Following Bowie's death in 2016, Rolling Stone listed the song as one of his 30 essential songs. [14] The same year, Ultimate Classic Rock , in their list of Bowie's ten best songs, listed "The Man Who Sold the World" at number 10, calling it "one of his most haunting songs of all time". [26] They subsequently commended Lulu and Nirvana's cover versions for helping bring the song into the mainstream. [26] In 2018, NME , in their list of Bowie's 40 greatest songs, ranked "The Man Who Sold the World" number 17, writing, "[The track] is not just a vintage slice of Bowie story-telling but a key part in his '90s renaissance, 20 years later", due in part to Nirvana's cover, which appeared at a time when "Bowie's critical stock was at a career-low ... coming after Bowie's late-'80s run of maligned albums." [27] In 2020, Alexis Petridis of The Guardian ranked the song 23rd in a list of Bowie's 50 greatest songs, writing, "The title track of his eeriest album remains mysterious, creepy and haunting 50 years on." [28]

Legacy

Bowie's original recording of "The Man Who Sold the World" has been released on multiple compilation albums, including The Best of David Bowie 1969/1974 (1997), [29] Best of Bowie (2002), [30] Nothing Has Changed (2014) [31] and Legacy (2016). [32] The song, along with its parent album, has been remastered multiple times, including in 2015 as part of the box set Five Years (1969–1973) . [33] Bowie performed the song on numerous occasions. He appeared on the American television programme Saturday Night Live in December 1979, performing the song with Klaus Nomi and Joey Arias. Pegg calls this version "superb". [34] He performed the song during his summer 2000 Mini Tour, including at the BBC Radio Theatre in London and at the Glastonbury Festival. Performances from these venues have been released on Bowie at the Beeb (2000) and Glastonbury 2000 (2018), respectively. [35] [36] A performance from the Reality Tour is featured on the live album A Reality Tour (2010). [37]

Scottish musician Midge Ure's cover was featured in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. Midge Ure 2004-10-26.jpg
Scottish musician Midge Ure's cover was featured in Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain .

The song has been covered by hundreds of artists, [34] with many noting that certain covers have managed to outshine the popularity of Bowie's original recording. Scottish singer Lulu recorded a version in 1974 that was produced by Bowie and Ronson and later became a top ten hit on the UK singles chart. [19] Scottish musician Midge Ure recorded a version for the soundtrack to the 1983 film Party Party , [38] though it mainly gained popularity through its inclusion in the 2015 video game Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain . [39] American rock band Nirvana performed the song for the television program MTV Unplugged in 1993, introducing it to a new audience. [4] Speaking about Lulu's recording, Bowie recalled in 2002, "I still have a very soft spot for [Lulu's] version, though to have the same song covered by both Lulu and Nirvana still bemuses me to this day." [15] AllMusic's Dave Thompson argues that the Lulu, Midge Ure and Nirvana recordings have managed to "establish the song at the very forefront of Bowie's canon." [20] Pegg writes that the popularity of its covers have made listeners unaware that the song was written by Bowie. [4] However, Alexis Petridis of The Guardian argues that although subsequent covers have tended to outshine Bowie's original in terms of popularity, none have ever matched the quality of the original. [28]

Bowie re-recorded "The Man Who Sold the World" on multiple occasions. For performances on the Outside Tour, it was performed in what Pegg calls a "radical trip-hop revamp"; a studio recording of the song was recorded by Bowie and mixed by Brian Eno and appears as the B-side of the CD single "Strangers When We Meet" (1995) and on digital and physical versions of the EP Is It Any Wonder? (2020). [34] [40] [41] Following mixing in late October 1995, Eno wrote in his diary, "It sounds completely contemporary. I added some backing vocals and a sonar blip and sculpted the piece a little so that there was more contour to it." [34] Live versions of this version of the song from 1995 were released in 2020 as part of the concert albums Ouvre le Chien (Live Dallas 95) and No Trendy Réchauffé (Live Birmingham 95) . A live version recorded in 1997 during Bowie's Earthling Tour was released in 2021 on the live album Look at the Moon! [42] In 2020, on what would have been Bowie's 73rd birthday, a previously unreleased acoustic version, recorded for the ChangesNowBowie documentary in 1996 during the Earthling sessions, was released. [43] According to Jon Blistein of Rolling Stone, this version has "a lighter touch, with that famous serpentine guitar riff slinking around a steady acoustic strum and slowly swelling synths." [43] It features Gail Ann Dorsey on bass and vocals, Reeves Gabrels (whom Bowie collaborated with in the band Tin Machine) on guitar, and Mark Plati on keyboards and programming. [44] This version was released on the digital version of the EP Is It Any Wonder? in February 2020 and on the album ChangesNowBowie in August 2020. Stephen Thomas Erlewine, writing for Pitchfork , described the re-recording as "a nod to Nirvana popularising the song a few years earlier". [45]

Personnel

According to Kevin Cann: [7]

Certifications

RegionCertification Certified units/sales
United Kingdom (BPI) [46] Silver200,000‡

‡ Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone.

Lulu version

"The Man Who Sold the World"
Themanwhosoldtheworld.png
A-side label of the UK single
Single by Lulu
B-side "Watch That Man"
Released11 January 1974 (1974-01-11)
Recorded16 July 1973 [47]
Studio Château d'Hérouville, Hérouville, France
Genre Pop-soul [28]
Label Polydor
Songwriter(s) David Bowie
Producer(s)
Lulu singles chronology
"Make Believe World"
(1972)		"The Man Who Sold the World"
(1974)		"The Man with the Golden Gun"
(1974)
Official audio
"The Man Who Sold the World" on YouTube

The song was covered by the Scottish singer Lulu in 1974, who, according to biographer David Buckley, performed it in "a sleazy, almost Berlin cabaret style". [48] Chris O'Leary categorises her rendition as "glam-disco" and calls it "loud, captivating and distorting." [49] Lulu would recall David Bowie inviting her to a concert he gave after which he met her in his hotel room saying: "I want to make a MF of a record with you [because] you're a great singer." Lulu – "I didn't think it would happen but [Bowie] followed up two days later. He was übercool at the time and I just wanted to be led by him. I loved everything he did. I didn't think 'The Man Who Sold the World' was the greatest song for my voice, but it was such a strong song in itself. I had no idea what it was about. In the studio Bowie kept telling me to smoke more cigarettes, to give my voice a certain quality." [50]

Regarding meeting her in the "Last Supper" at the Hotel Café Royal, Bowie later said, "We started talking about the possibility of working together. I was keen to get something fixed up, because I really have always thought that Lulu has incredible potential as a rock singer. I didn't think this potential had been fully realised...we decided on 'The Man Who Sold the World' as being most suitable." [15] Bowie produced Lulu's recording of "The Man Who Sold the World" with Mick Ronson during the July 1973 Pin Ups sessions at the Château d'Hérouville in Hérouville, France and also contributed saxophone and backing vocals. [15] The remainder of the band included Ronson on guitar, Trevor Bolder on bass, Mike Garson on piano, and Aynsley Dunbar on drums. [51] Bowie added saxophone overdubs and oversaw the final mix at Olympic Studios in London during the Diamond Dogs sessions. [15] According to O'Leary, Bowie had Lulu smoke cigarettes in between takes in order to "abrade" her voice. [49]

Lulu's version of "The Man Who Sold the World" was released as a single on 11 January 1974 by Polydor Records (as 2001 490), [47] with a cover of Bowie's Aladdin Sane track "Watch That Man" as the B-side. [52] She promoted her version with an appearance on the British television programme Top of the Pops on 10 January, in which she performed in a charcoal suit and gangster hat. According to Nicholas Pegg, this outfit bore a "remarkable resemblance" to the wardrobe of Bowie's future persona The Thin White Duke. [15] Neil Bartlett characterised her performances as "dressed and sounding exactly like a diminutive Bowie". [53] Her performances helped the single peak at No. 3 on the UK Singles Chart, [54] as well as No. 8 on the Irish Singles Chart, [55] and No. 24 and 10 on the Belgian and Netherlands Singles Charts, respectively. [56] O'Leary writes that the single charted higher than almost all of Bowie's 1970s singles and made his original recording "seem like a demo". [49] Jack Whatley of Far Out magazine writes that while Nirvana's cover is "the stuff of legend", it is Lulu's version of the song that "has us spellbound from its first sleazy moments." [57] He argues that she has the "perfect voice" for the track and calls the video a "seventies dream." [57] He further calls her first Top of the Pops performance "stunning, arresting, and a silky smooth affair, filled with enough sleaze to make your weekend feel naughty it remains the best version of Bowie’s iconic song." [57]

Track listing

All songs written by David Bowie. [52]

  1. "The Man Who Sold the World" – 3:58
  2. "Watch That Man" – 5:11

Chart positions

Chart (1974)Peak
position
Australia (Kent Music Report) [58] 81
Belgian Singles Chart (Ultratop) [56] 24
Netherlands Singles Chart [56] 10
Irish Singles Chart [55] 8
UK Singles Chart (Official Charts Company) [54] 3

Personnel

According to Roy Carr and Charles Shaar Murray: [51]

Nirvana version

"The Man Who Sold the World"
The Man Who Sold the World (Nirvana).jpg
1995 CD promo single
Promotional single by Nirvana
from the album MTV Unplugged in New York
Released1995 (1995)
Recorded18 November 1993
Studio Sony Music, New York City
Length4:20
Label DGC
Songwriter(s) David Bowie
Producer(s)
Nirvana singles chronology
"Polly"
(1994)		"The Man Who Sold the World"
(1995)		"Where Did You Sleep Last Night"
(1995)
MTV Unplugged in New York track listing
13 tracks
  1. "About a Girl"
  2. "Come as You Are"
  3. "Jesus Doesn't Want Me for a Sunbeam"
  4. "The Man Who Sold the World"
  5. "Pennyroyal Tea"
  6. "Dumb"
  7. "Polly"
  8. "On a Plain"
  9. "Something in the Way"
  10. "Plateau"
  11. "Oh, Me"
  12. "Lake of Fire"
  13. "All Apologies"
  14. "Where Did You Sleep Last Night"

Charts

Certifications

RegionCertification Certified units/sales
Australia (ARIA) [96] 2× Platinum140,000‡
Brazil (Pro-Música Brasil) [97] Gold30,000‡
Italy (FIMI) [98]
Sales since 2009 		Gold50,000‡
Spain (PROMUSICAE) [99] Gold30,000‡
United Kingdom (BPI) [100]
Sales since 2004 		Gold400,000‡

‡ Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone.

Accolades

YearPublicationCountryAccoladeRank
1998 Kerrang! United Kingdom20 Great Nirvana Songs Picked by the Stars [101] 20

Personnel

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"Queen Bitch" is a song by the English singer-songwriter David Bowie. It was originally released on his 1971 album Hunky Dory before appearing as the B-side of the single "Rebel Rebel" in the United Kingdom in early 1974. Co-produced by Bowie and Ken Scott, the lineup consisted of the musicians who would later become known as the Spiders from Mars: Mick Ronson, Trevor Bolder and Mick Woodmansey.

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"Moonage Daydream" is a song by the English singer-songwriter David Bowie. It was originally recorded in February 1971 at Radio Luxembourg's studios in London and released as a single by his short-lived band Arnold Corns in May 1971 on B&C Records. Bowie subsequently re-recorded the song later that year with his backing band the Spiders from Mars—Mick Ronson, Trevor Bolder and Mick Woodmansey—for release on his 1972 album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. The re-recording was co-produced by Ken Scott and recorded at Trident Studios in London in November 1971. The re-recording is a glam rock song that uses melodic and harmonic hooks, as well as percussion and guitar influenced by heavy metal. On the album, the song directly introduces the character Ziggy Stardust, who describes himself as a bisexual alien rock superstar who will save the Earth from the impending disaster described in the opening track "Five Years". It features saxophone played by Bowie and a guitar solo and string arrangement by Ronson.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ziggy Stardust (song)</span> 1972 song by David Bowie

"Ziggy Stardust" is a song by the English singer-songwriter David Bowie from his 1972 album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. Co-produced by Bowie and Ken Scott, he recorded it at Trident Studios in London in November 1971 with his backing band the Spiders from Mars—comprising Mick Ronson, Trevor Bolder and Mick Woodmansey. Lyrically, the song is about Ziggy Stardust, a bisexual alien rock star who acts as a messenger for extraterrestrial beings. The character was influenced by English singer Vince Taylor, as well as the Legendary Stardust Cowboy and Kansai Yamamoto. Although Ziggy is introduced earlier on the album, this song is its centrepiece, presenting the rise and fall of the star in a very human-like manner. Musically, it is a glam rock song, like its parent album, and is based around a Ronson guitar riff.

"Watch That Man" is a song by the English musician David Bowie, the opening track on the album Aladdin Sane from 1973. Its style is often compared to the Rolling Stones' Exile on Main Street. The mix, in which Bowie's lead vocal is buried within the instrumental sections, has generated discussion among critics and fans.

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