Who recorded it first
The Man Who Sold the World
Not a Nirvana original — a 1970 David Bowie song
This one splits by generation: to many younger listeners ‘The Man Who Sold the World’ is a Nirvana song, but Nirvana’s 1993 version is a cover. It was written and first recorded by David Bowie in 1970, as the title track of his Mercury Records album. Nirvana played it on MTV Unplugged two decades later and introduced it to an audience that had never heard the original.
The record
Who recorded it first
Released Recorded May 1970; released November 1970 in the US (April 1971 in the UK) as the title track of The Man Who Sold the World, produced by Tony Visconti
Charted Never issued as a Bowie single — an album track that stayed a relative deep cut in his catalogue for more than twenty years
Hear David Bowie's 1970 original (2014 remaster) youtube.com · David Bowie artist channel — provided to YouTube by Rhino/Parlophone Then compare Nirvana’s acoustic reading, taped 18 November 1993 for MTV Unplugged in New York — the version that, for a generation, displaced Bowie’s original. www.youtube.com · Uploaded by NirvanaVEVO (the band’s official VEVO channel), copyright line ℗ 1994 Geffen Records. Runtime 259s, matched against the MusicBrainz Nirvana recording on MTV Unplugged in New York at 257s — 2s apart. Noted: this is the “Unedited” upload, i.e. the full performance including Cobain’s spoken intro, which is why it runs marginally longer than the 4:20 album track; NirvanaVEVO’s shorter edit (218s) was rejected as too far off the MusicBrainz figure.How we traced it
The song was written by David Bowie and first recorded by him in May 1970 for Mercury Records, as the title track of the album The Man Who Sold the World Wikipedia ↗.
Bowie never released it as a single, and within his own crowded catalogue it stayed a relative deep cut — better known for a time through Lulu’s 1974 hit version than through Bowie’s own.
Nirvana covered it on MTV Unplugged in New York, recorded 18 November 1993 and released in 1994; the stark acoustic reading reached millions who had never heard the 1970 original and quietly reassigned the song in many listeners’ minds MTV Unplugged ↗.
Wikipedia — the song’s history and Nirvana’s coverKnow more about the original — or think we’ve got it wrong? Add a source →
Fact-check
The attribution problem
This is a generational misattribution: nothing about Nirvana’s performance is wrong or fake. The only error is believing they originated the song — a 1993 cover mistaken for the source by listeners who met it there first.
‘It’s a Nirvana song’
Nirvana’s 1993 Unplugged version is a cover. David Bowie wrote the song and recorded it first, twenty-three years earlier, in 1970 the history ↗.
David Bowie, 1970
Bowie’s version was the album’s title track but never a single — a relative deep cut in a vast catalogue, which is exactly why a later cover could overshadow it so easily.
Nirvana, 1993
For younger fans, MTV Unplugged was the first time they heard the song at all. When the cover is your introduction, it is hard to imagine it belonging to anyone else.
Written and first recorded by David Bowie in 1970, and made famous again — but not originated — by Nirvana in 1993 the record ↗.
Who wrote it
Who wrote it
Written by David Bowie — not Nirvana
How we traced the writing
The song is credited to David Bowie, who wrote it and recorded it first for his 1970 album of the same name.
For a generation who met the song through Nirvana’s 1993 MTV Unplugged performance, it reads as a Nirvana original — a confusion Kurt Cobain himself noted, saying afterwards that people assumed he had written it.
The same page’s other story is the recording (above): Bowie cut it first in 1970, and Nirvana’s is the cover that reached a wider audience. He both wrote it and recorded it first.
Context
Why the cover ate the original
A cover eclipses its original most easily when the original never had a spotlight of its own. Bowie’s ‘The Man Who Sold the World’ was an album track, not a single, and it sat in the shadow of his bigger hits; there was no famous Bowie recording lodged in the public’s memory to defend the song’s origin.
The twist is generational. Nirvana’s 1993 Unplugged performance arrived for millions of younger listeners as a first encounter, not a reinterpretation — and Bowie himself noticed. He recounted young fans praising him for ‘doing a Nirvana song,’ a neat measure of how completely the cover had taken over the source.
The two records, in order
- David Bowie writes ‘The Man Who Sold the World’ and records it first (May 1970, Mercury).
- It is released November 1970 as the album’s title track — never a single, and a relative deep cut.
- Nirvana perform it on MTV Unplugged in New York, 18 November 1993.
- The live album is released in 1994; the acoustic version becomes many listeners’ introduction to the song.
- In the public memory of a younger generation, the song quietly becomes a Nirvana number.
When the cover is your introduction, it is hard to imagine the song belonging to anyone else.