Brownsville Girl
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"Brownsville Girl" is a song from Bob Dylan's 1986 album, Knocked Out Loaded. It is notable for its eleven-minute length and for being co-written by playwright Sam Shepard.
The song speaks to a lover, presumably one years gone. The singer speaks wistfully of her, though is clear to add he is with someone else now, and muses that she reminds him of her (he says she has the same "dark rhythm in her soul").
Often the singer interrupts his reminisces of the mysterious Brownsville Girl to describe the plot of a western movie starring Gregory Peck that he saw once (but believes he 'sat through it twice'). The plot of the film, about a young upstart who shoots an aging gunslinger, and then is warned by the dying man that now he must watch his own back, is almost certainly 1950's The Gunfighter.
Interestingly, the backup singers aren't just scenery here; they seem quite active. Not only do they perform the long song's haunting chorus ("Brownsville girl\ With your Brownsville curl...."), but sardonically interject their own replies, such as "Oh, yeah?", and, at one point, they let go a three-part harmonized anguished howl of pain.
There are no known covers of "Brownsville Girl". An early version of the song exists, recorded for his previous album 1985's Empire Burlesque, is occasionally found in bootleg recordings and is called "New Danville Girl".
[edit] External Link
- Knocked Out Loaded Analysis Page link|
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