BALLAD OF HOLLIS BROWN
“Ballad of Hollis Brown” is a blues song written by Bob Dylan, released in 1964 on his third album The Times They Are A-Changin’. The song tells the story of a South Dakota farmer who, overwhelmed by the desperation of poverty, kills his wife, children and then himself. (More from Wikipedia)
The name of Hollis Brown is taken from a Bob Dylan song “Ballad of Hollis Brown”. (Did I mention that I have a cover version of “Ballad of Hollis Brown” by Iggy and the Stooges? Quite good also). Like “Ruby Tuesday” (which became the name of a major American restaurant chain) and “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” (Jumpin’ Jack Flash is also the name of a Whoopi Goldberg film, and as I remember, the song lyrics figure into the story also), Amanda Jones is a character in a Rolling Stones song, “Miss Amanda Jones”. The song appears on one of my favorite Rolling Stones albums, Between the Buttons – “Ruby Tuesday” also appears on that album, at least the US version. I don’t think it a coincidence that the UARB shares its name with this song, though I suppose it is possible.
(December 2015)
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Wild Love is a great CD. If this was the only album by the Stooges that I owned – or even if it was the only Stooges album that existed – they would still be one of my favorite bands. People talk about “deep album cuts”, but those songs are sitting on albums for anyone to pick up and play. These are “deep archive cuts”, buried on rehearsal tapes that in the normal course of events for any musicians would never have seen the light of day, on an album that runs for well over 60 minutes. The thrill that I felt when I found an unknown 1960’s Bob Dylan song on a new bootleg album purchase is only matched by what I felt the first several times that I played this album.
As a hardcore Dylan fan, naturally I am delighted to have the remarkable cover by the Stooges of “Ballad of Hollis Brown”. Not surprisingly, it is much different from Dylan’s own acoustical rendition of “Ballad of Hollis Brown”; the hard rock performance backing Iggy Pop’s passionate vocals has a metronomic feel to it that suits the grim subject matter well.
(December 2017)
