Well, here we are. Another edition or episode of Random Bowie, look you see. As this is the third edition / episode of this year it struck me as somewhat appropriate to go all the way back to the third album by Bowie; or at the least the third album as per the commonly agreed and accepted way of counting them.
Yes, then. In this article (sorry, I cannot be pestered writing edition / episode each time) it’s the turn of The Man Who Sold The World. This record is something of a curiosity in the world of David Bowie. Whereas once it was fairly obscure and pretty much not overlooked but simply not looked at (or rather heard), a certain 90s cover – the umpteenth cover of the song – of the titular track made the world all of a sudden pay attention.
But first, as standard, some fantastic (I hope), quickfire facts. The record was released in America during late 1970, with the UK release only coming some six months later. On release the album made little to no impact in terms of the chart, possibly due to no singles being released in support of it. Slight chart success followed in the wake of that whole Ziggy Stardust business making Bowie a huge star. On that note, The Man Who Sold The World is in many respects a “prototype Ziggy” in terms of line up, as this is where Mick Ronson and Mick “Woody” Woodmansey make their debut proper in regards of appearing in Bowie’s backing band.
This album was something of a peculiar, unusual step, then. After the whimsical, quasi psychedelic pop of his first album, the moon landing boosted success of Space Oddity and the flat out “I am a hippy” sound of his second album, well, bam bam. David Bowie in his infinite wisdom elected to go all hard rock and heavy metal. And brilliantly so, I can tell you now. Well, mostly.
Where to begin with this? Yeah, I know I have already begun, but you know what I mean. The music, I suppose.
The album opens with the sublime opus that is The Width Of A Circle. It is, quite frankly, an astonishing, breathtaking work. Don’t take my word for this, please do seek it out and listen if you’ve not heard it. And further to that, also don’t take my word for it – despite the album not being a huge seller, this song remained a central part of Bowie’s live sets all the way through to 1974.
What makes The Width Of A Circle so special? The audacity, I suppose. It’s a thumping, sexually and religiously charged epic of some eight minutes. Despite a clear narrative being in place few have dared to guess what on earth it is all about. Most best guesses interpret it as an iconoclastic, playfully homoerotic and at times decidedly hetero sexual tryst between man, god and devil. But, if you’ve not heard it, don’t worry so much and just play the song, revel in it.
I would think there could be little doubt that Width Of A Circle was inspired by some of Bowie’s on musical heroes. This came, after all, not long after “rock opera” works were all the rage. Perhaps The Who was a big influence on this, but more A Quick One While He’s Away than Tommy. Also works such as The Kinks Are Village Green Preservation Society by, erm, The Kinks. My suspicions are that a certain Freddie Mercury was also a big fan of The Width Of A Circle, as Bohemian Rhapsody borrows a bit of theme, structure and lyrical inspiration from it. Perhaps Bowie mentioned this in passing during the alleged highly sordid sessions what saw Under Pressure performed and recorded.
And yes, oh yes, this is a heavy metal song. Sure, the homoerotic subtext might be at odds with how heavy metal is understood at face value, in particular from an early 70s definition, but metal it is. As mentioned earlier, the album is all hard rock and heavy metal, except for the bits where it is being blues.
Why was this? Well, here in 2018 we look back fondly – and rightly – as Bowie being the great innovator, the one who inspired generation after generation of musician. May, on that note, his music inspire many more. But back then, it was Bowie who sought to be inspired.
The fact that this album was released in America long before the UK is a clue. I have no evidence or testimony for this, but you cannot help feel Bowie saw bands like Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath have a world of (in no particular order) money, sex, drugs, fame, adulation, worship and critical acclaim from the heavy metal sound. Why, exactly, would Bowie not want to have a crack at getting some if not all of that for himself with a similar sound?
Please don’t misinterpret the above. By no means do I suggest that The Man Who Sold The World is some sort of attempt at cashing in on the success of a particular sound. This is well and truly a Bowie album; evidenced by the lyrical wonders across it all.
A moment to reminisce, if you will, before I get to “the big one” on the record (yes, the titular track). Back in the 80s and early 90s I took some stick and some jibes for being a Bowie fan. Most of my mates, fairly, knew or thought of Bowie as “that gay pop star” and were aware of nothing but his bank account pleasing 80s pop.
This was all before the grand reissuing campaign for Bowie’s albums on CD began. Getting hold of his less well known 70s work was tricky, then. As a result, my first encounter with The Man Who Sold The World was a copy on tape borrowed off a library. For some reason I was unable to return it on time, so asked a friend – one who had given some stick and jibes – to take it back. This they did. As it happens, they decided to play the tape before returning it, presumably with the intention of getting more material or evidence to tease me with. Instead, they confessed to playing it, suggested that they “might” have been wrong about Bowie, and asked if I could possibly tape some more of his stuff for him, so long as it was like that rather than Let’s Dance.
So, the title track. The Man Who Sold The World. As was the case with a number of key songs to follow, this was a tune that Bowie loved, very much, but never felt as though he “got it right”. To this extent the song got “farmed out” and covered some. In the 70s no less than Lulu did a version – one that bizarrely charted very well. The 80s saw no less than Midge Ure cover it, but it didn’t do so well. And then came the 90s and then came Nirvana doing it as part of their MTV Unplugged set.
How important was the Nirvana cover in the grand scheme of things? Very. From a Bowie perspective, the way Kurt Cobain played it sounded like the way it should always have been played. Indeed, not long after Nirvana’s MTV performance, Bowie all of a sudden started playing the song in his own sets again, doing so in a way that sounded informed if not influenced by the Nirvana approach to it. So far as I am aware, however, Bowie didn’t ever declare his love for the Nirvana cover. He might have in interviews that I am not aware of, but the closest I can find to a reference is that one time he told Dave Grohl out of Nirvana to “f*** off”.
Beyond in a sense enabling Bowie to bring a song he loved back into his set, it is not getting carried away to say that Nirvana covering Bowie brought Bowie to a whole new audience. Oh, sure, fuddy duddy fans like me would love to say that the 1993 double whammy of Black Tie White Noise and The Buddha Of Suburbia were the key to the sort of quasi rejuvenation and revival he got. In truth, Nirvana selecting a Bowie song for their most widely seen – and if not actually then close to being their final – performance got people curious and wanting to hear more. Not bad, when you consider that MTV baulked at the setlist Nirvana proposed to do, requesting the band do things such as drop the Bowie cover in favour of doing one of their own hits.
Earlier I spoke of influence and being influenced. The Man Who Sold The World might not have sold many copies or been a huge hit, but the sound of it clearly fell on the right ears. Nirvana are far from alone in being a band which cite this record as being a major influence on them making music in the first place. To illustrate, have a listen to She Shook Me Cold. Maybe it is just me, but the haunting, dominating and thumping bass at the opening would not sound out of place at all on Nevermind or Bleach.
So, I’ve discussed two of the tracks on the record. No, I am not going to discuss any more in detail. My humble hope with these posts is to try and do my bit to inspire people to go and find Bowie albums they might not be aware of and enjoy, or (most likely) go and rediscover them.
Well, except to say there’s some fascinating extras on the 1990 version of the CD what I have here. Of the four tracks, two of them went on to be well known – Moonage Daydream and Hang On To Yourself. These are not demo versions, dear reader – they are ones recorded with every intention of being released as they were. With good fortune they were not, and were instead reworked into better songs for the Ziggy Stardust album.
Any controversy around The Man Who Sold The World? Oh, goodness me, yes. Lots of it, existing at just about every possible level. Let’s start with the actual construction and composition of the album.
Due to the record not being a massive seller it was rare that Bowie spoke of it. When he did, often it was in tones of frustration. Disappointment that it didn’t reach a bigger audience or release, dissatisfaction with the arrangement of the titular track never feeling quite right and disgust at the allegation that he was in some way just “window dressing” on the record, or “pixie dust” if you are a Troggs fan. Certain people who worked on the record claimed that the music was all done with no involvement from Bowie, and his contribution was to – claimed reluctantly – drag himself away briefly from Angie in order to throw a few words together. Bowie, without getting angry with many or any, has always refuted this. I our evidence is the work which followed from all, the most reasonable of jury and the most objective of judge would, methinks, find in favour of Bowie’s interpretation of events.
How about other controversy? Well, how about the cover. Or, yes, covers. The Man Who Sold The World has at least four. Undoubtedly pictures of them all feature with this post, but for the most part two are of interest.
Firstly, and the most famous of the covers, the “man dress” one. The elegant portrait of Bowie lazing on a splendid couch, wearing a by the standard of 1970 eloquent, divine, sophisticated and to die for frock designed by Michael Fish.
Quite a bold statement, that. In 1970 there was no “shades of grey”, no “I identify as this gender”, etc. No. A gentleman who wore a dress was gay, or harsher words as used in those somewhat less tolerant times. Yes, sure, in retrospect it is easy to see and say that the move was Bowie starting to toy and play with the androgynous image which fascinated him. For me, though, this is the start of a lifelong passion he had for subversion. To subvert is what he loved doing, right until the end. If you’re going to deliver a hard rock, stone cold solid macho heavy metal album, why not subvert it and listener expectations by gaying up the cover?
The other cover I want to speak of is perhaps even more interesting. It’s the one of the cowboy with the blank or if you like empty speech bubble. Yes, there was text in the bubble, but the record label ordered it removed.
What did it say? There’s a funny thing – the text was removed from the original, apparently, and no one can remember for sure. Apparently it was something along the lines of “roll up your sleeves and show me your arms”. This worked as a drug use reference, as the cowboy asking a poker player to show they were not cheating and somehow a homosexual reference, the nature of which flies over my head. Yes, I’m curious as to what it actually said, but no, rather let it remain a mystery.
As we head towards the end, unless I fiddle and add some comments about some of the songs, is The Man Who Sold The World an album worth getting for the casual Bowie fan, or for music lovers in general? My answer is a resounding yes, if only because it’s the only practical way to get and hear the two songs I have gone into any detail about. There is a great deal more to the album than just them two, mind. But they are songs I would call absolutely essential listening for anyone with even the slightest interest in Bowie.
So, another edition / episode done. Quite an interesting one, I think. Hopefully I’ve highlighted how important the album was in terms of its influence on musicians who followed, and quite by chance in terms of bringing Bowie to an entirely new audience. For an album with no genuine hits and few sales, it sure did seem important.
Thinking on and looking back, I suppose it might just be fair to say that, in retrospect, the first Tin Machine could be interpreted as Bowie trying to back to the sound of The Man Who Sold The World. Little wonder if so, really. Several critics, writers who make money off writing (which is more than I do) and so on have declared this album to be the one which marked “the start of Bowie proper”. With the lost sense of direction he apparently had, where better, then, for him to return to when seeking to get back on track.
Anyway, that’s that. No, not a clue what the next edition / episode will be. For now, then, I can only hope this has been an interesting read for you, and that you give the music spoken of a go.
be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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