Chords for The Story Behind "Brownsville Girl"
Tempo:
71.325 bpm
Chords used:
A
D
Bm
B
E
Tuning:Standard Tuning (EADGBE)Capo:+0fret
Start Jamming...
I mean, Knocked Out Lady, apart from one of the worst ever covers of a Bob Dylan album,
it did have Brownsville Girl on it, which is that 11-minute collaboration with Sam Shepard.
And I think David Hepworth at the time in Q pointed out that
any Bob Dylan song over about five minutes is automatically called a masterpiece.
It's one of these songs, it's four chords that cycle themselves.
There's no bridge, there's no chorus, it's just four chords that just keep going
and the dynamics determine where the verse was and where the chorus was.
And as we were doing it, we thought we were doing an anthem.
We thought, oh, this is a sad-eyed lady of the lowland, this is a desolation row,
this is one of these greats, and it had that feeling about it when we did it.
The original tracking session, it was originally called Danville Girl,
and there were some lyric revisions along the way,
but it really felt like this was one of these landmark Bob Dylan recordings,
which I think unfortunately suffered as time went on, as more overdubs got on,
and suddenly this wall of sound arrangement kind of crept into it
and it started sounding like a Phil Spector record,
which it was absolutely not feeling like when we first recorded it.
So it felt like it had the anthem, but it ultimately was not there.
Way down in Mexico
You went out to find a [D] doctor and you never came back
I [Bm] would have gone after you but I [B] didn't feel like letting my head [A] get blown off
Well, we're driving this car
And the sun is coming up over the [D] Rockies
Now [Bm] I know she ain't you but [E] she's here
She's got that dark [A] rhythm in her soul
As I said, it was these four chords, G, [C] A minor, [G] C, D, G.
That was the song [A] for 12 some odd minutes.
Nothing changed except the dynamics of them.
And now we're recording it, and he had some female vocalists in there,
I think, yes, at that time.
He stopped the recording and said that he was short a verse.
I said, well, we could stop and go to another song.
And he said, no, no, give me a second.
So he takes out a very impossibly small pen
and an equally impossibly small piece of paper
and starts writing in the corner of the studio.
And I didn't know what he was doing, we didn't know what he was doing,
we just took a break.
I don't think more than 10 minutes went by.
He said, OK, let's try it.
It then dawned on us what he had done.
He wrote this verse.
There was a lot of writing to be done in this very small space.
And so we're getting to it.
Now we're hearing the new verse for the first time,
and our jaws are slack because the guy just sat there
and wrote a great verse without having to go home and think about it
and do whatever you have to do to summon up the muse.
So that was one of those moments where the genius aura came,
and I thought, oh, that's why he's Bob Dylan, he can do that.
[D]
[Bm] [A]
He brought in saxophone, trumpet.
All this stuff was happening to this track that we saw
as this classic blonde on blonde.
It had the organ swells, it had the great guitar stuff, minimalist.
And we saw this thing just kind of slip away.
And so he didn't like the clarity.
He liked the idea of it being more of a swirl of kind of a mess of sound,
and that's what eventually the world has heard.
So I have a mix somewhere of the clean version of this thing,
which to me
it did have Brownsville Girl on it, which is that 11-minute collaboration with Sam Shepard.
And I think David Hepworth at the time in Q pointed out that
any Bob Dylan song over about five minutes is automatically called a masterpiece.
It's one of these songs, it's four chords that cycle themselves.
There's no bridge, there's no chorus, it's just four chords that just keep going
and the dynamics determine where the verse was and where the chorus was.
And as we were doing it, we thought we were doing an anthem.
We thought, oh, this is a sad-eyed lady of the lowland, this is a desolation row,
this is one of these greats, and it had that feeling about it when we did it.
The original tracking session, it was originally called Danville Girl,
and there were some lyric revisions along the way,
but it really felt like this was one of these landmark Bob Dylan recordings,
which I think unfortunately suffered as time went on, as more overdubs got on,
and suddenly this wall of sound arrangement kind of crept into it
and it started sounding like a Phil Spector record,
which it was absolutely not feeling like when we first recorded it.
So it felt like it had the anthem, but it ultimately was not there.
Way down in Mexico
You went out to find a [D] doctor and you never came back
I [Bm] would have gone after you but I [B] didn't feel like letting my head [A] get blown off
Well, we're driving this car
And the sun is coming up over the [D] Rockies
Now [Bm] I know she ain't you but [E] she's here
She's got that dark [A] rhythm in her soul
As I said, it was these four chords, G, [C] A minor, [G] C, D, G.
That was the song [A] for 12 some odd minutes.
Nothing changed except the dynamics of them.
And now we're recording it, and he had some female vocalists in there,
I think, yes, at that time.
He stopped the recording and said that he was short a verse.
I said, well, we could stop and go to another song.
And he said, no, no, give me a second.
So he takes out a very impossibly small pen
and an equally impossibly small piece of paper
and starts writing in the corner of the studio.
And I didn't know what he was doing, we didn't know what he was doing,
we just took a break.
I don't think more than 10 minutes went by.
He said, OK, let's try it.
It then dawned on us what he had done.
He wrote this verse.
There was a lot of writing to be done in this very small space.
And so we're getting to it.
Now we're hearing the new verse for the first time,
and our jaws are slack because the guy just sat there
and wrote a great verse without having to go home and think about it
and do whatever you have to do to summon up the muse.
So that was one of those moments where the genius aura came,
and I thought, oh, that's why he's Bob Dylan, he can do that.
[D]
[Bm] [A]
He brought in saxophone, trumpet.
All this stuff was happening to this track that we saw
as this classic blonde on blonde.
It had the organ swells, it had the great guitar stuff, minimalist.
And we saw this thing just kind of slip away.
And so he didn't like the clarity.
He liked the idea of it being more of a swirl of kind of a mess of sound,
and that's what eventually the world has heard.
So I have a mix somewhere of the clean version of this thing,
which to me
Key:
A
D
Bm
B
E
A
D
Bm
I mean, Knocked Out Lady, apart from one of the worst ever covers of a Bob Dylan album,
it did have Brownsville Girl on it, which is that 11-minute collaboration with Sam Shepard.
And I think David Hepworth at the time in Q pointed out that
any Bob Dylan song over about five minutes is automatically called a masterpiece.
It's one of these songs, it's four chords that cycle themselves.
There's no bridge, there's no chorus, it's just four chords that just keep going
and the dynamics determine where the verse was and where the chorus was.
And as we were doing it, we thought we were doing an anthem.
We thought, oh, this is a sad-eyed lady of the lowland, this is a desolation row,
this is one of these greats, and it had that feeling about it when we did it.
The original tracking session, it was originally called Danville Girl,
and there were some lyric revisions along the way,
but it really felt like this was one of these landmark Bob Dylan recordings,
which I think unfortunately suffered as time went on, as more overdubs got on,
and suddenly this wall of sound _ _ arrangement kind of crept into it
and it started sounding like a Phil Spector record,
which it was absolutely not feeling like when we first recorded it.
So it felt like it had the anthem, but it ultimately was not there.
Way down in Mexico
You went out to find a [D] doctor and you never came back
I [Bm] would have gone after you but I [B] didn't feel like letting my head [A] get blown off
Well, we're driving this car
And the sun is coming up over the [D] Rockies
_ Now [Bm] I know she ain't you but [E] she's here
She's got that dark [A] rhythm in her soul
_ As I said, it was these four chords, G, [C] A minor, [G] C, D, G.
That was the song _ [A] for 12 some odd minutes.
Nothing changed except the dynamics of them.
And now we're recording it, and he had some female vocalists in there,
I think, yes, at that time.
He stopped the recording and said that he was short a verse.
I said, well, we could stop and go to another song.
And he said, no, no, give me a second.
So he takes out a very impossibly small pen
and an equally impossibly small piece of paper
and starts writing in the corner of the studio.
_ And I didn't know what he was doing, we didn't know what he was doing,
we just took a break.
I don't think more than 10 minutes went by.
He said, OK, let's try it.
It then dawned on us what he had done.
He wrote this verse.
There was a lot of writing to be done in this very small space.
And so we're getting to it.
Now we're hearing the new verse for the first time,
and our jaws are slack because the guy just sat there
and wrote a great verse without having to go home and think about it
and do whatever you have to do to summon up the muse.
So that was one of those moments where the genius aura came,
and I thought, oh, that's why he's Bob Dylan, he can do that.
_ _ _ _ [D] _
_ _ _ [Bm] _ _ _ [A] _
He brought in saxophone, trumpet.
All this stuff was happening to this track that we saw
as this classic blonde on blonde.
It had the organ swells, it had the great guitar stuff, minimalist.
And we saw this thing just kind of slip away.
And so he didn't like the clarity.
He liked the idea of it being more of a swirl of kind of a mess of sound,
and that's what eventually the world has heard.
So I have a mix somewhere of the clean version of this thing,
which to me
it did have Brownsville Girl on it, which is that 11-minute collaboration with Sam Shepard.
And I think David Hepworth at the time in Q pointed out that
any Bob Dylan song over about five minutes is automatically called a masterpiece.
It's one of these songs, it's four chords that cycle themselves.
There's no bridge, there's no chorus, it's just four chords that just keep going
and the dynamics determine where the verse was and where the chorus was.
And as we were doing it, we thought we were doing an anthem.
We thought, oh, this is a sad-eyed lady of the lowland, this is a desolation row,
this is one of these greats, and it had that feeling about it when we did it.
The original tracking session, it was originally called Danville Girl,
and there were some lyric revisions along the way,
but it really felt like this was one of these landmark Bob Dylan recordings,
which I think unfortunately suffered as time went on, as more overdubs got on,
and suddenly this wall of sound _ _ arrangement kind of crept into it
and it started sounding like a Phil Spector record,
which it was absolutely not feeling like when we first recorded it.
So it felt like it had the anthem, but it ultimately was not there.
Way down in Mexico
You went out to find a [D] doctor and you never came back
I [Bm] would have gone after you but I [B] didn't feel like letting my head [A] get blown off
Well, we're driving this car
And the sun is coming up over the [D] Rockies
_ Now [Bm] I know she ain't you but [E] she's here
She's got that dark [A] rhythm in her soul
_ As I said, it was these four chords, G, [C] A minor, [G] C, D, G.
That was the song _ [A] for 12 some odd minutes.
Nothing changed except the dynamics of them.
And now we're recording it, and he had some female vocalists in there,
I think, yes, at that time.
He stopped the recording and said that he was short a verse.
I said, well, we could stop and go to another song.
And he said, no, no, give me a second.
So he takes out a very impossibly small pen
and an equally impossibly small piece of paper
and starts writing in the corner of the studio.
_ And I didn't know what he was doing, we didn't know what he was doing,
we just took a break.
I don't think more than 10 minutes went by.
He said, OK, let's try it.
It then dawned on us what he had done.
He wrote this verse.
There was a lot of writing to be done in this very small space.
And so we're getting to it.
Now we're hearing the new verse for the first time,
and our jaws are slack because the guy just sat there
and wrote a great verse without having to go home and think about it
and do whatever you have to do to summon up the muse.
So that was one of those moments where the genius aura came,
and I thought, oh, that's why he's Bob Dylan, he can do that.
_ _ _ _ [D] _
_ _ _ [Bm] _ _ _ [A] _
He brought in saxophone, trumpet.
All this stuff was happening to this track that we saw
as this classic blonde on blonde.
It had the organ swells, it had the great guitar stuff, minimalist.
And we saw this thing just kind of slip away.
And so he didn't like the clarity.
He liked the idea of it being more of a swirl of kind of a mess of sound,
and that's what eventually the world has heard.
So I have a mix somewhere of the clean version of this thing,
which to me