“The Man Who Sold The World” by David Bowie

The title track of David Bowie's third album, "The Man Who Sold the World" came out on Mercury in November 1970 in the States, with Britain made to wait until April 1971. Tony Visconti produced it at Trident and Advision in London that May, near the end of the sessions, and Bowie was so offhand about the whole business that he cut his vocal on the last day of mixing.

Somehow that only makes it creepier. Mick Ronson's riff goes round and round like a thought you can't shake, Visconti plays bass, Mick Woodmansey rattles a güiro alongside his drums, Ralph Mace adds Moog, and Bowie's phased, ghostly voice floats over cryptic words drawn from poems like William Hughes Mearns's "Antigonish". It was never a Bowie single, only a B-side on 1973 reissues, but it has since been counted among his best songs.

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