The Bewlay Brothers

Song infobox
Name = The Bewlay Brothers


Artist = David Bowie
Album = Hunky Dory
Released = December 17 1971
Rykodisc Reissue January 30 1990
track_no = 11
Recorded = Trident Studios, London April 1971
Genre = Rock
Length = 5:27
Label = RCA
Writer = David Bowie
Producer = Ken Scott, David Bowie
prev = "Queen Bitch"
prev_no = 10
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"The Bewlay Brothers" is a song written by David Bowie in 1971 for the album "Hunky Dory". The last track to be written and recorded for "Hunky Dory", this ballad has been described as "probably Bowie's densest and most impenetrable song".Roy Carr & Charles Shaar Murray (1981). "Bowie: An Illustrated Record": p.41] The composer himself supposedly 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". [David Buckley (1999). "Strange Fascination - David Bowie: The Definitive Story": pp.114-115] 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." [David Bowie (2008). [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1030121/DAVID-BOWIE-I-went-buy-shoes--I-came-Life-On-Mars.html "DAVID BOWIE: I went to buy some shoes - and I came back with Life On Mars"] , "The Daily Mail", 28 June 2008. Retrieved on 11 July 2008.]

Some commentators have also seen references in the song to Bowie's stepbrother Terry, a schizophrenic, while others such as Tom Robinson have discerned a "gay agenda". [Nicholas Pegg (2000). "The Complete David Bowie": p.37] 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".

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".

The song was performed live for the first time on BBC Radio 2 in 2002.

Other releases

* It appeared in the "Sound and Vision" box in 1989.
* An alternate mix was released as a bonus track on the Rykodisc CD release of "Hunky Dory" in 1990.
* It was included in a self-selected compilation of favourite tracks titled "ISELECT" in 2008.

Cover versions

* Replicants on "Replicants" (1995).

Notes