The people who performed The Man Who Sold The World
Posted by Moonage | Filed under Interpretations
Possibly the song that seems to get the best remakes is “The Man Who Sold The World”. Most recently Jordis Unga did a very good job performing it. In fact, here it ls
Although he didn’t perform the song per se, Klaus Nomi gained the closest thing to fame he’d ever know performing it with Bowie on Saturday Night Live. In my own personal opinion, upstaging Bowie with his voice alone:
And, of course, Nirvana’s version I think shocked anyone listening that night. It was incredible. Dueling the lead solo with e cello was an amazing work of genius on behalf of Cobain that gained the most respect for the guy I would ever know. Nirvana’s video of this performance is so popular Bowie finds have to announce Bowie performances as “not the Nirvana version”.
Tags: david bowie, Interpretations, jordis-unga, klaus-nomi, nirvana, the-man-who-sold-world
Klaus Nomi
Posted by Moonage | Filed under The World Of David Bowie
On December 19, 1979, Bowie was featured on Saturday Night Live. Quite frankly, at this point, Bowie had been in a bit of a creative funk. He had done some shows and such, but his performances were becoming “normal”. I didn’t like it either. However, that changed on that evening. Bowie pulled out all the creative juices and put together one of my favorite performances he would ever do. The description of that show is summed up best by teenagewildlife.com:
Three songs were performed, The Man Who Sold The World, with Bowie carried to the front of the stage by Nomi and Arias, while wearing a man’s evening dress and a large bow tie (emulating the poet Tristan Tzara).
Next was Boys Keep Swinging. For this Bowie emulated a puppet trick (with the help of television) he had seen in German fairs. A small puppet’s trunk and limbs were situated just beneath Bowie’s head, giving the appearance of a marionette with a huge human head. In a trick he sneaked past the censors, the puppet took a look down Bowie’s trousers right at the end of the song.
Finally, for TVC15, Bowie wore a uniform that gave the impression of a Chinese airline stewardesses outfit. In addition, stage designer Mark Ravitz created a pink poodle with a small tv monitor in its mouth, broadcasting the song as it was performed
Although Bowie was at his oddest, what sold the entire event was Arias and Nomi. They were two Kooks who looked serious. Their robotic movements and semi-simultaneous jerks and twitches were a riot. Bowie did not acknowledge who they were on the show ( he had no speaking parts ). So, people were just kind of left in the lurch.
Klaus Nomi would later gather a certain amount of fame not from that show, but for another reason, he was one of the first star casualties of AIDS. Nomi was truly one of the oddest characters to ever grace the music scene. Be sure to visit that link up there, it’s a riot!
Here’s the songs from that show. Check out the pup. Enjoy it while you can, I doubt SNL will appreciate me posting this.
Tags: AIDS, boys-keep-swinging, david bowie, klaus-nomi, The World Of David Bowie, the-man-who-sold-the-world, tvc15
The Man Who Sold The World
Posted by Moonage | Filed under Interpretations
Here’s my version:
This is Bowie’s best performance:
Here’s the best non-Bowie version:
Tags: david bowie, Interpretations, klaus-nomi, nirvana, the-man-who-sold-the-world
