"The Supermen
" is a song written by David Bowie in 1970 and released as the closing track on the album The Man Who Sold the World
. It was one of a number of pieces on the album inspired by the works of literary figures such as Friedrich Nietzsche and H. P. Lovecraft.
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THE SUPERMEN TICKETS
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Music and lyrics
The song has been cited as reflecting the influence of
German Romanticism, its theme and lyrics referencing the apocalyptic visions of
Friedrich Nietzsche and its prominent
timpani part being likened to
Richard Strauss'
Also Sprach Zarathustra
.
[1] Bowie later said "I was still going through the thing when I was pretending that I understood Nietzsche... And I had tried to translate it into my own terms to understand it so 'Supermen' came out of that."
[2] Critics have also seen the influence of
H. P. Lovecraft's stories of "dormant elder gods".
[3]
According to Bowie himself the guitar riff was given to him by
Jimmy Page when the latter, who was
Shel Talmy's session guitarist in the mid-1960s, played on one of Bowie's early releases, "
I Pity the Fool".
The riff was later used on another Bowie song, "
Dead Man Walking", from the
Earthling
album in 1997.
Live versions
- Bowie played the song at the BBC show Sounds of the 70s
with Bob Harris on 21 September 1971. This was broadcast on 4 October 1971 and in 2000 was released on the album Bowie at the Beeb
.
- A live version recorded at the Boston Music Hall on 1 October 1972 was released with the Sound and Vision
box set in 1989. It also appeared on the bonus disc of the Aladdin Sane - 30th Anniversary Edition
in 2003.
- Another live version recorded at Santa Monica Civic Auditorium on 20 October 1972 was released on the album Santa Monica '72
.
Other releases
An alternate version of the song was recorded on
12 November 1971 during sessions for
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
. It first appeared on the album
Revelations - A Musical Anthology for Glastonbury Fayre
in July 1972, compiled by the organisers of
Glastonbury Festival at which Bowie had played in 1971.
[4] It was later released on as a bonus track on the
Rykodisc CD and cassette reissue of
Hunky Dory
in 1990, and again on the
Ziggy Stardust - 30th Anniversary Reissue
bonus disc in 2002.
Cover versions
- Human Drama – PinUps
(1993)
- Ventilator – Crash Course for the Ravers - A Tribute to the Songs of David Bowie
(1996)
- The Mission – Goth Oddity - A Tribute to David Bowie
(1996)
Notes
- Nicholas Pegg (2000). ''The Complete David Bowie'': pp.209-210
- David Buckley (1999). ''Strange Fascination - David Bowie: The Definitive Story'': p.267
- Roy Carr & Charles Shaar Murray (1981). ''Bowie: An Illustrated Record'': p.38
- Roy Carr & Charles Shaar Murray (1981). Ibid: p.49