Pop Song 654 of 1000 'The man who sold the world' David Bowie 1970

Pop Song 654 of 1000 'The man who sold the world' David Bowie 1970

Official MV    • David Bowie – The Man Who Sold The Wo...  

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

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 laughed and shook his hand
And made my way back home
I searched for form and land
For years and years I roamed
I gazed a gazely stare
At all the millions here
We must have died alone
A long, long time ago
Who knows? Not me
We never lost control
You're face to face
With the man who sold the world
Who knows? Not me
We never lost control
You're face to face
With the man who sold the world