Old Album Review - David Bowie, The Man Who Sold the World

Album cover used without permission.

This article was written for Listen In, the premiere newsvine music group.

It seems to me that everyone has a different favorite David Bowie album. Sure, we all love Ziggy - but the magic of Bowie seems to be that he is able to speak to each of us in our own language. This doesn't always translate well to others - why my favorite Bowie album, The Man Who Sold the World, elicits shrugs from people and groans from others is frankly beyond me.

Today I'd like to take a look at this disc, song by song - not just to share my appreciation with you, but also to help me understand it a bit better itself. This album seems to be doing so many things at once that it's hard for me to explain exactly what I like about it.

Like most people in my generation, I first heard the title track as performed by Nirvana during their famous Unplugged performance. The lyrics had always intrigued me, so it was with some degree of curiosity that I sought out the Bowie album from which they had come. "The Man Who Sold the World" is the second-last track on the disc - so I put on my headphones, got on my bike and gave the whole disc a spin during a long ride while living in Japan.

The result was astonishing - this album is a surreal combination of occult practice, science fiction and madness all rolled together and sharpened into a single unified edge. By the time I got to the title track...well, I still didn't get it. I'm still not sure I do - not logically. I'm not 100% sure what this disc is about - but for the first time, in spite of these cognitive difficulties, I felt like I understood it.

Let's go over it, maybe we'll figure out why.

The Tracks

1. The Width of a Circle - A fantastic opening track - mysterious, powerful guitar driving profound lyrics. It tells the story of the character's coming of age -
   

   In the corner of the morning in the past
   I would sit and blame the master first and last
   All the roads were straight and narrow
   And the prayers were small and yellow
   And the rumour spread that I was aging fast
   Then I ran across a monster who was sleeping by a tree
   And I looked and frowned and the monster was me...

   The song goes on to describe what seems to be some sort of sexual encounter with the devil - it's all very androgynous and vague but the abiding sense is at once ethereal and violently physical. All things considered, this is probably one of the strongest tracks on the disc and a great introduction for what's to come - surreality, mysticism and a subversion of the standard sense of right and wrong.

2. All the Madmen - Having turned morality and sanity on their respective heads, Bowie immediately follows up with a song about Vietnam. The "sane" world is at war, and the character her wants no part of it - "I'd rather stay here with all the madmen than perish with the sad men roaming free." Listen for the wonderful flute (panpipes?) that plays in the gaps of the guitar work - musically, the song is a wonderful interplay between structure and chaos. We've got a really well-defined driving musical structure that gets undermined and highlighted here and there by various tricks (the flute, a robotic voice over, some violins). Lots of people on the internet seem to feel this to be the most definitively "Bowie" track on this disc - I'm not entirely sure what that means, but I really enjoy it.
3. Black Country Rock - Ya know, this one does nothing for me. The lyrics may be some kind of metaphor, but if so they're not a very compelling one. Musically it's kind of repetitive and I can't help but feel like this is some kind of B-Side filler track. Sorry, David. If anyone disagrees, please let me know below.
4. After All - This bizarre waltz might be my favorite track on the album. It's musically less engaging than some of the others, and I can see how some people may be put off by the whole "Oh by Jingo" elements. The whole characterization of Powerful Old White Men as "just taller children, that's all" is a nice touch but what really blew me away in this song comes in the last verse. In an album that's been obsessed with the idea of God and People as just children, suddenly we get this brilliant line:
   

   I sing with impertinence, shading impermanent chords, with my words
   I've borrowed your time and I'm sorry I called
   But the thought just occurred that we're nobody's children At all, after all.

   What a magnificent declaration of freedom and self determination - we are nobody's children. We are our own beings. It's here that I fell in love with this disc - like the first track, this whole album is about growing up. It's about learning to take responsibility for your own existence - on an individual level, on a social level and on a spiritual level. "We're nobody's children at all" may well become my motto.

5. Running Gun Blues - This song didn't age gracefully - nobody could get away with such a track in this day and age. It's a relic from a time when the "us vs them" between the peace movement and the military was in full swing. It's a loud, hysterical, obnoxious track about a soldier who just loves to kill and who doesn't plan to stop just because the hippies finally ended the war -
   

   It seems the peacefuls stopped the war
   Left generals squashed and stifled
   But I'll slip out again tonight
   Cause they haven't taken back my rifle
   For I promote oblivion
   And I'll plug a few civilians

   It's the sort of thinking that led to the harsh treatment of the military after Vietnam. It was a chaotic time for everyone, and I think the track has to be understood in that context. That said - this is an album about what it means to be human and sane and alive, and I think it's fair enough to include a character sketch of this kind of sociopath.

   Bowie's larger point seems to be that war is this insane, dehumanizing force - and, especially in Vietnam, it really was. That was a conflict that destroyed the minds and souls of many who fought in it. This song, while perhaps not sensitive to the individual who is turned into this killing machine, nevertheless highlights the inhumanity required to go out and kill for your country.

6. Saviour Machine - Now here's an interesting track. Musically, I swear this song appeared in some old Nintendo game - the opening riff, which repeats throughout, evokes vague memories of an 8-bit boss fight. Lyrically, we have another interesting story - humanity, in its infinite wisdom, creates a computer to solve all of its problems. Its "logic stopped wars, its answer was law." Predictably, things go wrong -
   

   How they adored till it cried in its boredom

   'Please don't believe in me, please disagree with me
   Life is too easy, a plague seems quite feasible now
   or maybe a war, or I may kill you all.

   The final message of the song is a restatement of the conclusions of "After All" - "You can't stake your lives on a saviour machine." Once again we get Bowie entreating his listeners to embrace their humanity. This album puts humanity above religion, above nationalism, above social status, above technology - we're nobody's children, after all, so we have to deal with our own problems.

   It's an interesting meditation on the idea that there are no permanent solutions to the human condition. There is no god and we can't build one.

7. She Shook Me Cold - Here's the other track on this album that I just can't stand. I feel like the character is the same deranged soldier from Running Gun Blues - it's a musically ugly track about this guy getting his head screwed up by a woman. He's been the scourge of many virgins etc but this chick gives him a great blowjob and he can't think straight. Yes, very insightful, David. Moving on.
8. The Man Who Sold The World - Here finally is the title track - but what does it mean? You've heard the song before, surely. You know the way the notes move up and down like the staircase the character finds himself climbing , and you are familiar with the cryptic, paradoxical lyrics. You just have no @!$%#ing idea what exactly he's trying to say.
   

   We passed upon the stair, we spoke of was and when
   Although I wasn't there, he said I was his friend
   Which came as some surprise - I spoke into his eyes:
   'I thought you died alone, a long long time ago'

   'Oh no, not me
   I never lost control
   You're face to face
   With the man who sold the world...'

   I feel like, in an album that deals so explicitly with the detachment of an individual from his soul, this song starts to make some sort of sense. Perhaps, if I may speculate, this song takes place on a larger scale - it's about the individual encountering his own humanity. We live and we die, but we always have the choice to embrace The Human Element - we never lost control. We only think we did, because we're so busy dealing with religious taboos or bloody conflict or social regulations or getting over our childhoods or any of the other crap that the tracks on this album try to deal with.

   But it doesn't have to be that way - all of that restriction, all of those chains, are just artifacts of the way we integrate ourselves into the world. But there's another way - we can exchange that world for unmitigated, unnegotiated humanity. We can sell the world in exchange for our souls and our freedom, and in doing so we become gods ourselves.

9. The Supermen - Which brings us to the Lovecraftian horror of the final track. The Supermen existed when the world was very young, "when mountain magic heavy hung." They were all-powerful and immortal - "woundrous beings chained to life." These aren't humans and their fate isn't one to which we should aspire - this isn't Nietzsche's ubermensch, it's some sort of sad monster condemned to live.
   

   Where all were minds in uni-thought
   Powers weird by mystics taught
   No pain, no joy, no power too great
   Colossal strength to grasp a fate
   Where sad-eyed merment tossed in slumbers
   Nightmare dreams no mortal mind could hold
   A man would tear his brother's flesh, a chance to die
   To turn to mold.

   Throughout this disc, Bowie has guided us through various chains and antagonistically confronted various fears. It's been obnoxious in parts and exciting in others, but each step of the way I feel like the music and the lyrics have combined to encourage a sort of cosmic freedom.

   What better way to end the disc, then, than with a look at the torment of eternal life? Because after all, what's the last fear to overcome if not the terror of nonexistence? Not that this track makes death an easier pill to swallow, but I like that he seems to be pointing out that not-dying isn't so great either. And isn't that, in the end, the great tragedy?

   This whole album is a passionate, convoluted ritual in service to the freedom of the human spirit. A freedom that wouldn't be complete if we didn't appreciate the inevitability of death and the ultimate liberation of the soul.

Conclusions

If you've stuck with me through all of that I thank you. I really enjoy doing these reviews because I discover a lot of details in these albums that I'd sort of taken for granted. I know that means the reviews get kinda long, but I figure that by now you know what you'll get from me. If you want two paragraphs and a star rating, go somewhere else - I'm much more interested in tearing apart my favorite music and understanding why I love it. If you're interested in the same pursuit then I invite you to stay with me.

As far as this disc goes, what do you think? Am I reading too much into it, or not enough? Did I miss something in Black Country Rock or She Shook Me Cold? How do you feel about this album - does the sort of weird 70's heavy-glam-metal sound of it throw you off? I didn't care for it at first, but it really grew on me.

What's your favorite Bowie? I've been told that I have to check out Hunky Dory, and of course everyone digs Ziggy. The man has an intimidating back catalog that I'll have to delve into a bit more deeply.

I really enjoy this album, though, and I appreciate your taking the time to share the experience with me.

This review is copyright 2007 for Mykola Bilokonsky. Any unauthorized duplication is prohibited, but if you want to link me I'd be ecstatic and if you want to duplicate me I'll likely consent. For more reviews of books, movies and music, click here.

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