David Bowie/Nirvana’s “The Man Who Sold The World” Played on the Gayageum, a Korean Instrument from the 6th Century

in Music | April 16th, 2017 8 Comments

East meets West, and the Ancient, the Mod­ern. That’s what hap­pens every time Luna Lee plays one of your favorites on the Gayageum, a Kore­an instru­ment that dates back to the 6th cen­tu­ry. We’ve fea­tured her work in years past (see the Relat­eds below). Above, watch her lat­est release: a cov­er of “The Man Who Sold The World,” the song first writ­ten by David Bowie in 1970, then famous­ly per­formed by Nir­vana on MTV Unplugged in 1993. An alter­nate video fea­tures Luna on vocals here. Enjoy!

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. Or fol­low our posts on Threads, Face­book, BlueSky or Mastodon. If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Clas­sic Blues Songs By John Lee Hook­er, B.B. King & Mud­dy Waters Played on the Gayageum, a Tra­di­tion­al Kore­an Instru­ment

Watch Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Voodoo Chile’ Per­formed on a Gayageum, a Tra­di­tion­al Kore­an Instru­ment

Three Pink Floyd Songs Played on the Tra­di­tion­al Kore­an Gayageum: “Com­fort­ably Numb,” “Anoth­er Brick in the Wall” & “Great Gig in the Sky”

Ste­vie Ray Vaughan’s Ver­sion of “Lit­tle Wing” Played on Tra­di­tion­al Kore­an Instru­ment, the Gayageum

Leonard Cohen’s “Hal­lelu­jah” Played on Kore­an Instru­ment Dat­ing Back to 6th Cen­tu­ry


by | Permalink | Comments (8) |

Sup­port Open Cul­ture

We’re hop­ing to rely on our loy­al read­ers rather than errat­ic ads. To sup­port Open Cul­ture’s edu­ca­tion­al mis­sion, please con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion. We accept Pay­Pal, Ven­mo (@openculture), Patre­on and Cryp­to! Please find all options here. We thank you!


Comments (8)
You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
  • Dave says:
    April 17, 2017 at 1:40 am

    Should just say “David Bowie’s”, not “David Bowie / Nir­vana’s”, as it isn’t a Nir­vana song

    Reply
  • Petteri says:
    April 17, 2017 at 5:51 am

    Yeah, then it even says “the song first writ­ten by David Bowie”, as if Nir­vana wrote it next

    Reply
  • charlie says:
    April 17, 2017 at 6:56 am

    Please do not give Nir­vana equal cred­it for this song. It is Bowie’s.

    Reply
  • Ivan Barba says:
    April 17, 2017 at 8:25 am

    Yeah. I thought so too.

    Reply
  • L.M. van Dijk says:
    April 17, 2017 at 10:07 am

    Open Cul­ture,
    please cor­rect your title. Nir­vana does not own any cred­it tot this song. Men­tion­ing them as such is a seri­ous mis­take. Please show respect to David Bowie and his fans.
    Mis­takes do hap­pen but you should rec­og­nize when to cor­rect them.

    Thank you.

    Reply
  • Veggiedude says:
    April 18, 2017 at 5:55 pm

    Imag­ine describ­ing the Lennon/McCartney clas­sic as the Beatles/Aerosmith “Come Togeth­er”… LOL.

    That’s how daft the title is.

    Reply
  • Frank says:
    June 11, 2017 at 6:27 am

    This is in no way any­thing to do with nir­vana, even the way she played it was David bowie’s ver­sion. Bowie, wrote, sang and made his song famous.

    She did a fab­u­lous job, doing bowie’s vocal on the beau­ti­ful instru­ment!

    Reply
  • Set Kant flat says:
    May 16, 2018 at 11:51 pm

    The artist her­self men­tions Nir­vana in the title of her video. So, it’s a bit dull to blame Open Cul­ture. The again, Bowie’s death short­ly before those com­ments might explain this over the top sen­si­tiv­i­ty…

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Quantcast
Open Culture was founded by Dan Colman.