The Bewlay Brothers

"The Bewlay Brothers" is a song written by the English singer-songwriter David Bowie in 1971 for the album Hunky Dory.

[2] 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".

[6] Compiler Andy Greene said, Virtually no entry in the David Bowie songbook has confused the hardcores quite like "The Bewlay Brothers."

It was the final track recorded for Hunky Dory and Bowie said at the time the lyrics were nonsense, but in later years he hinted it was inspired by his schizophrenic half-brother Terry.

He's also only played it five times, and those were all between 2002 and 2004.John Mendelsohn of Rolling Stone magazine wrote, "'The Bewlay Brothers' sounds like something that got left off The Man Who Sold because it wasn't loud enough.

Musically it's quiet and barren and sinister, lyrically virtually impenetrable — a stream-of-consciousness stream of strange and (seemingly) unrelated imagery — and it closes with several repetitions of a chilling chorus sung in a broad Cockney accent, which, if it's any help, David usually invokes when he's attempting to communicate something about the impossibility of ever completely transcending the mundane circumstances of one's birth.