The Bewlay Brothers

	David Bowie "The Bewlay Brothers" (1971) 30 second sample from David Bowie's "The Bewlay Brothers".
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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".^[1] Bowie 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".^[2] 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."^[3]

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.

Reception

Some commentators have also seen references in the song to Bowie's half-brother Terry, a schizophrenic, while others such as Tom Robinson have discerned a "gay agenda".^[4] 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".^[1]

Other releases

• It appeared in the Sound and Vision box set 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

• John Howard on The Bewlay Brothers EP (Kid in a Big World, 2007)
• Replicants on Replicants (1995)
• Rhett Miller on The Interpreter: Live At Largo EP (Maximum Sunshine Records, 2011)

Notes