Songfacts®:

• "Watch That Man" describes a bad experience at a party. In his New Musical Express (April 14, 1973) review of Aladdin Sane, journalist Charles Shaar Murray described It as "a nightmare party sequence straight out of Dylan's 'Ballad Of A Thin Man.'"
• The details of the nightmare are difficult to parse out because the lyrics are vague. Somehow, though, Bowie manages to create a definite sense of calamity and dread with the song. The clearest description of things gone afoul is:
  
  And the bodies on the screen stopped bleeding
  Yeah I was shaking like a leaf
  For I couldn't understand the conversation
  Yeah I ran to the street, looking for information
• In The Complete David Bowie, author Nicholas Pegg claims Bowie himself stated in 1973 that the song is about the afterparty that followed his first performance at Carnegie Hall in New York. According to Pegg, Bowie sought to "pinpoint and exaggerate" the incident.
  
  Other evidence supports Pegg's claims. The Carnegie show's setlist shows that Bowie played the Velvet Underground song "I'm Waiting For The Man" that night at Carnegie Hall. Both the title of that song and the theme of "Watch That Man" bear similarities, as the man in the Velvet song is obviously a drug dealer, while the man in the Bowie song may be one as well.
• In Rebel Rebel, Chris O'Leary claims the song is about a party that followed a New York Dolls show. Bowie admired the Dolls. Their rough, Stones-like sound may have directly inspired the sound of "Watch That Man."
  
  O'Leary identifies many of the references in the song.
  
  No one took their eyes off Lorraine
  
  Lorraine is the model Cyrinda Foxe, who was known to be at that New York Dolls party.
  
  A Benny Goodman fan painted holes in his hands
  
  There's no mystery to this one. Benny Goodman (1909-1986) was known as the "King of Swing." He was an American jazz clarinetist.
  
  A lemon in a bag played the tiger rag
  
  The "lemon in a bag" is John Lennon.
  
  When the Reverence Alabaster danced on his knees
  
  This is Bowie himself.
• The Bowie Bible suggests that Bowie is the "prey" in the song's verses but becomes the "predator" in the choruses.
• Following the glam rock of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars, "Watch That Man" marked a drastic turn for Bowie. It's rough, raw rock and roll, which was exactly the direction Bowie was wanting to go. Ever the experimenter, he was looking for something more like The Rolling Stones and New York Dolls. Many critics of the time derided his effort.
• The song is mixed so Bowie's voice is on the same level as the instruments rather than lifted up at the center. It's a technique The Rolling Stones used a lot. This was the doing of co-producer Ken Scott, who mixed the song.
  
  When Scott sent the song to the record label, they asked him to mix it so Bowie's vocals were lifted up per the usual approach for pop music. Scott did so. RCA heard the new version and agreed that the original version was better, so they went with that.
• This was the B-side to the Italian version of the "Let's Spend The Night Together" single, released off Aladdin Sane.
• A 1974 Japanese compilation titled The Best of David Bowie includes this song.
• Lulu released her own version as the B-side to her cover of "The Man Who Sold The World" in 1974. Bowie performed guitar, saxophone, and backing vocals on the track.