What's your interpretation of David Bowie's 'The man who sold the world'?
Answers
Answer:
I highly recommend you to also listen to the Nirvana version of this David Bowie classic. This song always stuck with me because you could really hear the pain in Kurt’s voice. In the guitar solo, it sounded to me like the guitar was crying along too!
Interpretation:
Some say that this song is about someone who is facing depression and who is struggling to survive. A part of him has died in the surviving process and yet he says to himself to keep strong and to never lose control. It’s like a man who is alive in real sense but can't live up to his dream, a man who is dead inside (in an abstract sense) but not actually dead.
Some say that this song is about Satan- 'The man who sold the world' . If you look at the lyrics closely, you will begin to form connections.
My interpretation is that the protagonist is himself the 'Man who sold the world', he has sold his soul for fame and fortune and has discarded his former beliefs. But he regrets it very much now. He makes a chance encounter with his former-self (the song is supposedly an imaginary conversation between the protagonist and his former-self, the latter which accuses him of losing control and selling out his soul)
To this, Bowie laughs and shakes his hand (he embraces his past but he knows he has to move on and make things right in his present life)
He adds that for years he had searched for a foreign land in pursuit of a distant dream, but now he realises that this decision was a mistake, so he heads back home only to die a lonesome death.
In the end, he makes a sarcastic remark, "You're face to face with the man who sold the world"