This ‘Hunky Dory’ Track, Partly Inspired by His Half-Brother and an Old Tobacco Shop, Was One of David Bowie’s Favorites

In January 1971, David Bowie made his first trip to the United States to support his third album, The Man Who Sold the World. Though he wasn’t allowed to perform due to a lack of a work permit, he opted for interviews, radio, and other promotional appearances instead, and immersed himself in American culture, along with connecting with Lou Reed, Andy Warhol, Iggy Pop, and others within the New York music and art scene. The visit inspired Bowie to write the more melodic, piano- and art-pop Hunky Dory, and introduced classics like “Changes,” “Life on Mars?” and “Oh! You Pretty Things.” 

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Decades later, when Bowie handpicked 12 of his favorite songs that he wrote and recorded for an exclusive CD compilation, iSELECT: BOWIE, for the British newspaper The Mail on Sunday, he chose two tracks from Hunky Dory. Bowie’s other favorites included “Sweet Thing/Candidate/Sweet Thing (Reprise)” on Diamond Dogs and “Teenage Wildlife” from Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps), along with “Lady Grinning Soul” (Aladdin Sane), “Win” (Young Americans), “Some Are” (Low),  “Repetition” and “Fantastic Voyage” (Lodger), and “Loving The Alien” (Tonight).

Opening Bowie’s playlist was his Hunky Dory classic “Life on Mars?”, a song he described as “so easy” in how it came together. “Being young was easy,” said Bowie. “A really beautiful day in the park, sitting on the steps of the bandstand: ‘Sailors bap-bap-bap-bap-baaa-bap.’ An anomic, not a ‘gnomic,’ heroine. Middle-class ecstasy.”

He added, “I took a walk to Beckenham High Street to catch a bus to Lewisham to buy shoes and shirts, but couldn’t get the riff out of my head. Jumped off two stops into the ride and more or less loped back to the house up on Southend Road.”

[RELATED: Andy Warhol Hated the Song David Bowie Wrote About Him]

Terry Burns and a British Tobacco Shop

Bowie’s second favorite from Hunky Dory is perhaps one of his more understated songs. “The Bewlay Brothers” closes the album, and the softer, acoustic ballad alludes to his relationship with his older half-brother Terry Burns, who died in 1985 at age 47. Burns, who suffered from schizophrenia, was an immense influence on Bowie, introducing him to modern jazz—prompting him to get his first saxophone for Christmas in 1959—along with philosophy, including Buddhism, Beat, and other literature, and intellectual movements that influenced him artistically.

Along with its brotherly exterior, “The Bewlay Brothers” also had a cryptic slant, exploring dual identities and some state of derangement.

And so the story goes, they wore the clothes
They said the things to make it seem improbable
The whale of a lie, like they hope it was
And the good men tomorrow had their feet in the wallow
And their heads of brawn were nicer shorn
And how they bought their positions with saccharin and trust
And the world was asleep to our latent fuss

Sighing, they swirl through the streets
Like the crust of the sun
The Bewlay Brothers
In our wings that bark
Flashing teeth of brass
Standing tall in the dark

Since the song wasn’t entirely about brotherhood, Bowie replaced his surname with another, “Bewlay,” which he pulled from a famous British tobacco shop chain, House of Bewlay.

“The only pipe I have ever smoked was a cheap Bewlay,” said Bowie. “It was a common item in the late ’60s, and for this song, I used Bewlay as a cognomen, in place of my own. This wasn’t just a song about brotherhood, so I didn’t want to misrepresent it by using my true name.”

He continued, “Having said that, 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.”

“Bewlay” resurfaced in 1977, when Bowie, Pop, and engineer Colin Thurston produced Pop’s album Lust For Life under the pseudonym “Bewlay Bros.” During the late ’70s, Bowie named his publishing company Bewlay Bros. Music.

Photo: Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images