Written by guest blogger, Edson Black:
Brownsville Girl, by Bob Dylan. My all time favorite song; it still amazes me. It reminds me of the confusion and insanity I feel every day. There is kind of a story he is telling and it is based on some actual westerns and other ideas but for the most part he is just rambling, but it’s perfect. For whatever reason Dylan can make nonsense work. Anybody can sit down and write some lyrics that don’t make much sense but only a few people can make those words really special and haunting. There are times, mostly when you are a child, that you just kind of space out and everything is peaceful, then you’re back to reality. Sometimes you don’t even remember it happening til years later, maybe it never even really happened.
This is a song I had heard a couple of times before it really hit me and I don’t even remember it hitting me. I think it was during one of those periods when you lose all sense of time. It flashes me back to sitting on my grandmother’s red carpet watching westerns with my grandfather. It takes me through the outsider and alien like feeling I’ve had my whole life. There is always one true love in your life and it is as nonsensical as this song.
I know she ain’t you but she’s here and she’s got that dark rhythm in her soul.
It’s a dream like feeling, no end and no beginning, to quote Madonna. Its unconditional honesty our main character is describing through a story with no real plot or theme but it’s perfect, absolutely perfect. Every set of lyrics in this song is brilliant and perfectly placed and the chorus makes me feel like I am walking through a painting of the first days of summer, a desert and a twilight zone episode all mixed together. I am thankful for Dylan, this song, and poker and my friends and family.