David Bowie: The Man Who Sold The World (1970)

Continuing our examination of Bowie, The Man Who Sold the World (1970) represents what some critics call the first true Bowie. While to me this reads as pure showmanship, I think perhaps it's important to recognize the musical significance of a new guitarist, but to say that out loud is to admit that I had to look to a Rolling Stone article to even notice.

The Man Who Sold the World is definitely a continued change, experimentation, and evolution of Bowie, but I believe, as we go through his and other band's discographies, that whether we like it or not from a critical perspective, every artist is always evolving. Perhaps that's unfair considering I haven't hit the backend of Weezer's discography yet, but we'll start with evolution as the primary thesis of these analyses.

Let's go, track by track, through Bowie's third strike, and in many ways, the one that would define his public persona more.



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1 - The Width of a Circle

Favorite Lyrics: "So I cried for all the others till the day was nearly through / For I realized that God's a young man too"

This song begins with an immediate introduction to the new guitarist on this album. It's a little deeper, a little heavier. There's an element of sleaze that belongs in good rock and roll. The great portions of this song are the jammier parts. The folk jams of Space Oddity have simply evolved into more important and emotional sound journeys. There's a real edge and grandness to the movements that lends an element of composition that was only really glimpsed in "Space Oddity" before this track.

The second half of this track is so much more in the line of rock and roll riff and bounciness that later rock would imitate real well. These first three albums at the least show Bowie's ease of changing personalities and sounds between albums.

2 - All the Madmen

Favorite Lyrics: "Here I stand, foot in hand, talking to my wall / I'm not quite right at all,"

This second song reminds me of the other tracks that mostly showed off music. Do I think there's any true context to the songs? No. But there is something incredibly happening in the merger of guitar and drums and vocals and eventually a real crazy electronic sounding horn/piano. I feel like the real hook of this song comes at the end. "Zane, zane, zane, ouvre le chien." There's such joy in the insanity. It reminds me of certain moments of Dark Side of the Moon.

3 - Black Country Rock

Favorite Lyrics: "Some may say its crazy, but you may adopt another point of view"

A real quick riff and lyric based song that fades into its jam. This is what I mean when I say the album is far more concerned musically than lyrically. These are songs that are meant to be heard live without the polish of studio recording. You're meant to hear these licks in a little club or something. Maybe that's what Black Country Rock is really all about.

4 - After All

Favorite Lyrics: "Some are marching together and some on their own / quite alone"

After All is a unique track on this album. Starting immediately with a quick-strumming sitar sound, and we're back to a whispery sound. Then some horns kick in. There's a haunting quality to this song and really you hear so many layers in the back ground to keep you in this mind set. You know, I always think Italian when I hear high pitched strumming guitars. This song's lyrics seem to be saying something important, but interestingly ends with the singer rejecting and apologizing what he's said before hand. 

5 - Running Gun Blues

Favorite Lyrics: "For I promote oblivion, And I'll plug a few civilians,"

This song, which is full of a manic energy that I feel better represents the emotions from older Bowie. There's that old school contrast of content that doesn't match the sound of the music. Though I will say that hard rock has always carried themes of violence much better. 

6 - Saviour Machine

Favorite Lyrics: "Don't let me stay, don't let me stay / My logic says burn so send me away"

Here we see a theme I never picked up on with Bowie which was the degree to which he uses religious discussion in his works. Last album we had one track and this album we have a far more direct one. The concept of a "saviour machine" is closely tied to the "super AI" that's in sci-fi novels. And here it's closely tied to the idea of God, less so with scientific allegory. So it's a literary concept that's used in these lyrics, and the poetry of it's view of humanity are the backbone. "You can't stake your lives on the saviour machine." Is how the lyrics appropriately end this song.

7 - She Shook Me Cold

Favorite Lyrics: "She sucked my dormant will,"

Here we get Bowie linking together a lot of sexual innuendo. Here that sleazy tone from the first track is sort of delivered. And I tell you what, I have a whole new view on the inspirations of my favorite band, Queens of the Stone Age. The last two albums have shown a sleaziness that admittedly isn't unfamiliar for the time period. The way that Bowie orgasms lyricless over the guitar solo at the end. 

8 - The Man Who Sold the World

Favorite Lyrics: "Although I wasn't there / He said he was my friend"

Man, here we get one of Bowie's greatest ever songs. The two things that makes this song so great are the guitar work and the lyrics, and that's why Nirvana would eventually play a stripped down version of the song. Indeed, to those who've heard the Nirvana cover their entire lives it comes as a surprise to get something that fits much better with this album. Layered, electric, overwhelming, to some extent this song delivers more on the idea of a sea of doppelgangers, men who've all lost their way, and become empty vessels.

It's difficult to know for sure what exactly Bowie is going for in these lyrics. It's dissociative in the same way as "Space Oddity." Perhaps my Father mentioned it best, in saying that there are some people you run into again who teach you more about your own understanding of the world than they do about themselves. People who you haven't seen for twenty years.

9 - The Supermen

Favorite Lyrics: "A man would tear his brother's flesh,"

The final song on this track is a primal stone age rock track. The backing voices combined with the heavy bass drums all give it the sound of very early Iron Maiden track. It's a weird track, but it doesn't even seem like the point is the composition so much. It feels much more by the numbers than other tracks on the album even though the sound is a bit unique.
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And that wraps up the third album of Bowie. Most critics say we're at true Bowie. I say, Bowie is just beginning. From here until the end of the seventies we have probably the biggest number of albums in Bowie's discography. Next week we will talk about Hunky Dory (1971).

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