The Man Who Sold the World (song)

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The Man Who Sold the World
David Bowie
publication November 4, 1970 (USA)
April 1971 (UK)
length 3:55
Genre (s) Folk rock , psychedelic rock
Author (s) David Bowie
album The Man Who Sold the World

The Man Who Sold the World is a rock song by David Bowie . It is the title track of his third album , which was released in the US in November 1970 and in the UK in April 1971 .

music

The original version is a mid-tempo folk rock or psychedelic rock song, orchestrated with an organ and a slightly distorted electric guitar. The song was later reworked by Bowie and provided with atmospheric synthesizer inserts, a new bass line and techno- like drums, thus reflecting a much darker mood. This version was played at his concerts from 1995 to 1997, including the 1995 MTV Europe Music Awards . Bowie reverted to the original version in the 2000s.

Origin and text

The Man Who Sold the World was recorded in April and May 1970 with producer Tony Visconti at Trident Studios and Advision Studios in London . According to Bowie, the lyrics are an attempt to describe his feelings as a teenager. It is partly influenced by the poem Antigonish by William Hughes Mearns . Bowie said in a BBC interview:

“I think I wrote it because there was a part of me that I was looking for. Maybe now I'm more comfortable with the way I live my life and my mental state [laughs] and my spiritual state, however, maybe there is some kind of oneness now. This song has always been an example to me of how you feel when you are young, when you know that there is a piece of you that you haven't really put together yet. You have this great search, this great need to find out who you really are. "

- David Bowie

reception

The Bowie version was not released as a single at the time the album was released. The song later reached the charts in Belgium (40th place) and France (61st place). On June 29, 1973 a single was released by RCA Victor in Australia , and in Portugal in the same year . The song appeared on various compilations , including Bowie's 2002 best-of album, Best of Bowie .

Cover versions

The song was covered by a number of other artists, including Lulu , who reached number three in Great Britain, number 13 in Germany and number tenth in the Netherlands in 1974 . The live version of Nirvana for the MTV Unplugged series from 1993, which then appeared on the album MTV Unplugged in New York in 1994 , also became widely known . This was not a single either, but reached the charts in Belgium (40th place) and France (149th place). It reached number one in Poland and 22nd in Canada .

Other versions exist among others of:

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Interview by Marianne Hobbs with David Bowie on BBC Radio 1 from 1997 ( Memento from September 2, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Transcription by Grant Wallace (engl.)
  2. ↑ Dave Thompson: Review of The Man Who Sold the World at allmusic.com (engl.)
  3. ↑ a b c https://hitparade.ch/song/David-Bowie/The-Man-Who-Sold-The-World-25059
  4. ↑ https://hitparade.ch/song/Lulu/The-Man-Who-Sold-The-World-25061
  5. ↑ https://hitparade.ch/song/Nirvana/The-Man-Who-Sold-The-World-317599