Topmusicanswers
This song is about a man who no longer recognizes himself and feels awful about it. For years, Bowie struggled with his identity and expressed himself through his songs, often creating characters to perform them.
- What is the story behind the man who sold the world?
- Why did David Bowie write The Man Who Sold the World?
What is the story behind the man who sold the world?
This song, originally written by David Bowie and later performed by Nirvana, is about a man who is shocked to meet the other version of himself or his personality he thought had been done away with. He is able to recognize this different version because it's probably from his past and he thought he had buried it.
Why did David Bowie write The Man Who Sold the World?
I guess I wrote it because there was a part of myself that I was looking for … that song for me always exemplified kind of how you feel when you're young, when you know there's a piece of yourself that you haven't really put together yet – you have this great searching, this great need to find out who you really are.
