Brownsville Blues

Steve Weddle has an MFA, but don't hold that against him. He reads a lot. He writes a lot. He teaches. He journalizes. One day he muses that this whole internet thing is nice and all, but he thinks there's something (gasp) special about reading ink on paper. Next thing you know he's a publisher. Needle magazine went from a newly fertilized brain egg to a dogeared book on my shelf in about six weeks. Holy crap.

Hey, young dudes, that's called follow-through.

And it wasn't all bad writing either. Steve and cohorts wrangled talent like Dave Zeltserman, Nathan Singer, Hilary Davidson and Sandra Seamans in that time and there's a second issue coming soon, (featuring, among others, Sarah Weinman, David Cranmer, Stephen Blackmoore, Mike Sheeter, Ray Banks, Nolan Knight and Frank Bill). I just hope that this much-wanted journal doesn't get in the way of his own output. His novel Lost & Found will hopefully be available to the masses soon. Meantime, his short fiction can be read in top crime publications like Crimefactory (go to archives- issue one), Beat to a Pulp and A Twist of Noir.

Steve Weddle is today's contributor to the Narrative Music series.

Brownsville Girl

Bob Dylan has some amazing Spaghetti Western songs, though that may be the wrong term as many of them take place in old Texas and Mexico, from Pat Garret to Durango. “Isis” is about a guy separated from his wife. He joins up with a tomb-robber. Then there’s “Senor (Tales of a Yankee Power),” a spooky, dreamy piece of tension and pain. And “Romance in Durango,” a tune he wrote with Jacques Levy, with this opening: “Hot chili peppers in the blistering sun/ Dust on my face and my cape,/ Me and Magdalena on the run/ I think this time we shall escape.” And, of course, many more played during the Rolling Thunder Revue in the ‘70s, with the stage filled with musicians in capes and boots and Dylan painted up like some insane Western take on the Japanese Noh theater.

But I don’t want to talk about those songs. The song worth your time is my favorite Dylan tune, one he wrote with Sam Shepard. One he recorded for 1985’s “Empire Burlesque.” The eleven-minute track didn’t make it on that album. Dylan reworked it, changing it from “New Danville Girl” to “Brownsville Girl.” The song found its way onto “Knocked Out Loaded,” one of two reasons to buy the album. (“Maybe Someday” isn’t bad.)

In the song, the narrator is telling the story of his romance, breaking that story up every so often with a re-telling of the 1950s Gregory Peck movie “The Gunfighter,” in which the old pro is hunted down by a young punk. Back and forth between the movie and the story of how the narrator and his gal got cornered in San Antonio, ran into trouble in Mexico, and, maybe, met O. Henry’s wife.

What I like so much about the song is the haziness of it, the fading into memory, into stories of gunfights and broken-down cars, into corrupt swap meets and the French Quarter, eternal loves and old heroes – and about the parts we play in our own movies:
--
Well, you saw my picture in the Corpus Christi Tribune. Underneath it,
it said, “A man with no alibi.”
You went out on a limb to testify for me, you said I was with you.
Then when I saw you break down in front of the judge and cry real tears,
It was the best acting I saw anybody do.
--
This isn’t a song about an old movie or an old love. This isn’t a song about what it means to grow old, to live your life looking back, wondering when you’re done. This isn’t a song about regret, about being chased, about the “dark rhythm” in a woman’s soul. This is a song about all of that, a song about a dying gunfighter, especially when it takes him a lifetime to die.

Brownsville Girl

Well, there was this movie I seen one time,
About a man riding ’cross the desert and it starred Gregory Peck.
He was shot down by a hungry kid trying to make a name for himself.
The townspeople wanted to crush that kid down and string him up by the neck.

Well, the marshal, now he beat that kid to a bloody pulp
As the dying gunfighter lay in the sun and gasped for his last breath.
“Turn him loose, let him go, let him say he outdrew me fair and square,
I want him to feel what it’s like to every moment face his death.”

Well, I keep seeing this stuff and it just comes a-rolling in
And you know it blows right through me like a ball and chain.
You know I can’t believe we’ve lived so long and are still so far apart.
The memory of you keeps callin’ after me like a rollin’ train.

I can still see the day that you came to me on the painted desert
In your busted down Ford and your platform heels
I could never figure out why you chose that particular place to meet
Ah, but you were right. It was perfect as I got in behind the wheel.

Well, we drove that car all night into San Anton’
And we slept near the Alamo, your skin was so tender and soft.
Way down in Mexico you went out to find a doctor and you never came back.
I would have gone on after you but I didn’t feel like letting my head get blown off.

Well, we’re drivin’ this car and the sun is comin’ up over the Rockies,
Now I know she ain’t you but she’s here and she’s got that dark rhythm in her soul.
But I’m too over the edge and I ain’t in the mood anymore to remember the times
when I was your only man
And she don’t want to remind me. She knows this car would go out of control.

Brownsville girl with your Brownsville curls
Teeth like pearls shining like the moon above
Brownsville girl, show me all around the world
Brownsville girl, you’re my honey love.

Well, we crossed the panhandle and then we headed towards Amarillo
We pulled up where Henry Porter used to live.
He owned a wreckin’ lot outside of town about a mile.
Ruby was in the backyard hanging clothes, she had her red hair tied back.
She saw us come rolling up in a trail of dust.
She said, “Henry ain’t here but you can come on in, he’ll be back in a little while.”

Then she told us how times were tough and about how she was thinkin’ of
bummin’ a ride back to from where she started.
But ya know, she changed the subject every time money came up.
She said, “Welcome to the land of the living dead.”
You could tell she was so broken hearted.
She said, “Even the swap meets around here are getting pretty corrupt.”

“How far are y’all going?” Ruby asked us with a sigh.
“We’re going all the way ’til the wheels fall off and burn,
’Til the sun peels the paint and the seat covers fade and the water moccasin dies.”
Ruby just smiled and said, “Ah, you know some babies never learn.”

Something about that movie though, well I just can’t get it out of my head
But I can’t remember why I was in it or what part I was supposed to play.
All I remember about it was Gregory Peck and the way people moved
And a lot of them seemed to be lookin’ my way.

Brownsville girl with your Brownsville curls,
Teeth like pearls shining like the moon above
Brownsville girl, show me all around the world
Brownsville girl, you’re my honey love.

Well, they were looking for somebody with a pompadour.
I was crossin’ the street when shots rang out.
I didn’t know whether to duck or to run, so I ran.
“We got him cornered in the churchyard,” I heard somebody shout.

Well, you saw my picture in the Corpus Christi Tribune. Underneath it,
it said, “A man with no alibi.”
You went out on a limb to testify for me, you said I was with you.
Then when I saw you break down in front of the judge and cry real tears,
It was the best acting I saw anybody do.

Now I’ve always been the kind of person that doesn’t like to trespass
but sometimes you just find yourself over the line.
Oh if there’s an original thought out there, I could use it right now.
You know, I feel pretty good, but that ain’t sayin’ much.
I could feel a whole lot better,
If you were just here by my side to show me how.

Well, I’m standin’ in line in the rain to see a movie starring Gregory Peck,
Yeah, but you know it’s not the one that I had in mind.
He’s got a new one out now, I don’t even know what it’s about
But I’ll see him in anything so I’ll stand in line.

Brownsville girl with your Brownsville curls,
Teeth like pearls shining like the moon above
Brownsville girl, show me all around the world,
Brownsville girl, you’re my honey love.

You know, it’s funny how things never turn out the way you had ’em planned.
The only thing we knew for sure about Henry Porter
is that his name wasn’t Henry Porter.
And you know there was somethin’ about you baby that I liked
that was always too good for this world
Just like you always said there was somethin’ about me you liked
that I left behind in the French Quarter.

Strange how people who suffer together have stronger connections
than people who are most content.
I don’t have any regrets, they can talk about me plenty when I’m gone.
You always said people don’t do what they believe in,
they just do what’s most convenient, then they repent.
And I always said, “Hang on to me, baby, and let’s hope that the roof stays on.”

There was a movie I seen one time, I think I sat through it twice.
I don’t remember who I was or where I was bound.
All I remember about it was it starred Gregory Peck, he wore a gun
and he was shot in the back.
Seems like a long time ago, long before the stars were torn down.

Brownsville girl with your Brownsville curls,
Teeth like pearls shining like the moon above
Brownsville girl, show me all around the world,
Brownsville girl, you’re my honey love.

Copyright © 1986 by Special Rider Music