"The Bewlay Brothers" | ||||
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Song by David Bowie | ||||
from the album Hunky Dory | ||||
Released | 17 December 1971 30 January 1990 (Rykodisc Reissue) |
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Recorded | Trident Studios, London, 30 July 1971 | |||
Genre | Folk rock, psychedelic folk | |||
Length | 5:27 | |||
Label | RCA | |||
Songwriter(s) | David Bowie | |||
Producer(s) | Ken Scott, David Bowie | |||
Hunky Dory track listing | ||||
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"The Bewlay Brothers" is a song written by David Bowie in 1971 for the album Hunky Dory. One of the last tracks to be written and recorded for the LP, the ballad has been described as "probably Bowie's densest and most impenetrable song".
Bowie named his publishing company in the late 1970s Bewlay Bros. Music and used the name as a pseudonym for himself, Iggy Pop and Colin Thurston as producers of Pop's 1977 album Lust for Life.
Bowie himself is said to have told producer Ken Scott that it was a track for the American market, because "the Americans always like to read things into things", even though the lyrics "make absolutely no sense". Reflecting on the song in 2008, Bowie wrote, "I wouldn't know how to interpret the lyric of this song other than suggesting that there are layers of ghosts within it. It's a palimpsest, then."
Some commentators have seen references in the song to Bowie's half-brother Terry Burns, who suffered from schizophrenia, while others such as Tom Robinson have discerned a "gay agenda". The coda features Bowie's voice distorted by varispeeding; NME critics Roy Carr and Charles Shaar Murray likened the effect to the Laughing Gnome, but "in considerably more sinister guise".
Some of these hinted interpretations showed up in the analysis of a Rolling Stone magazine's Readers' Poll: The 10 Best David Bowie Deep Cuts, in which "Bewlay Brothers" came in at #8 (after such hits as Panic in Detroit, Station to Station, and Teenage Wildlife). Compiler Andy Greene said,