Ballad of Hollis Brown
"Ballad of Hollis Brown" | |
---|---|
Song by Bob Dylan | |
from the album The Times They Are A-Changin' | |
Released | January 13, 1964 (1964-01-13) |
Recorded | August 7, 1963 |
Genre | Folk |
Length | 5:06 |
Label | Columbia |
Songwriter(s) | Bob Dylan |
Producer(s) | Tom Wilson |
"Ballad of Hollis Brown" is a folk 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.
Music and structure
The Times They Are A-Changin' version was recorded on August 7, 1963. The song had been recorded during sessions for Dylan's previous album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, in November 1962, but remained an outtake. On this earlier version, Dylan played the harmonica and just strummed the chords, rather than picking the strings. (The live versions between 1962 and 1964 were also played that way, but without the harmonica.) According to Michael Gray, the guitar work and melodic structuring in "Hollis Brown" are taken from the Appalachians, "where such forms and modes had evolved, in comparative isolation, over a period of almost two hundred years".[1] More specifically, the chords, tune and verse-structure of "Ballad of Hollis Brown" are based on the ballad "Pretty Polly", a song Dylan performed at the Gaslight Club in New York City prior to recording "Ballad of Hollis Brown".[2][3][4]
The album version of the song is performed as a solo piece by Dylan with his vocal accompanied by an acoustic guitar in the flatpicking style. The guitar is in 'double-dropped D tuning': Both the first and sixth strings, which normally play two Es separated by two octaves, are tuned down a whole step, down to D. Also, Dylan uses a capo on the first fret. Therefore, while his fingers are positioned as if he were playing in the key of D minor, the song is actually in the key of E♭ minor.[5]
Lyrics
Lyrically, this song consists of 11 verses which bring the listener to a bleak and destitute South Dakota farm, where a poor farmer, his wife and five children, already living in abject poverty, are subjected to even more hardships. In despair, the man kills his wife and children and himself with a shotgun. Critic David Horowitz commented:[6]
Technically speaking, "Hollis Brown" is a tour de force. For a ballad is normally a form which puts one at a distance from its tale. This ballad, however, is told in the second person, present tense, so that not only is a bond forged immediately between the listener and the figure of the tale, but there is the ironic fact that the only ones who know of Hollis Brown's plight, the only ones who care, are the hearers who are helpless to help, cut off from him, even as we in a mass society are cut off from each other.... Indeed, the blues perspective itself, uncompromising, isolated and sardonic, is superbly suited to express the squalid reality of contemporary America. And what a powerful expression it can be, once it has been liberated (as it has in Dylan's hands) from its egocentric bondage! A striking example of the tough, ironic insight one associates with the blues (and also of the power of understatement which Dylan has learnt from Guthrie) is to be found in the final lines of Hollis Brown:
There's seven people dead on a South Dakota farm,
There's seven people dead on a South Dakota farm,
Somewhere in the distance there's seven new people born.
Live performances
Dylan played "Hollis Brown" live from 1962 to 1964, including on a Westinghouse television special in 1963[7] and at Brandeis University in May 1963 (released in 2011 on Bob Dylan in Concert – Brandeis University 1963). He also performed it in 1965, during the "comeback" Bob Dylan and the Band 1974 Tour, and at Live Aid in 1985. The song was regularly featured during the Never Ending Tour through 2012. Dylan has played it over 200 times total.[8]
Recordings by other artists
Some of the prominent musicians and groups that have covered "Ballad of Hollis Brown" include:
- Nina Simone: Let It All Out (1965)
- Hugues Aufray: Chante Dylan (1965), Trans Dylan (1995), Au Casino de Paris (1996)
- Cornelis Vreeswijk: Kalle Holm (1974, Swedish)
- Nazareth: Loud 'N' Proud (1974)
- Leon Russell: Stop All That Jazz (1974)
- The Stooges: Death Trip (1987), Open Up and Bleed (1995), Wild Love (2001)
- The Neville Brothers: Yellow Moon (1989)
- Stephen Stills: Stills Alone (1991)
- Billy Childish: The Ballad of Hollis Brown (1992)
- Old Blind Dogs: Legacy (1995)
- Mike Seeger (performed with Bob Dylan): Third Annual Farewell Reunion (1995)
- Stone the Crows: The BBC Sessions Volume 1 (1969–1970) (1998)
- Entombed: Wreckage (EP, 1997), Black Juju (EP, 1998)
- Kevn Kinney: The Flower and the Knife (2000)
- Hootie and the Blowfish: A Tribute to Bob Dylan, Volume 3: The Times They Are A-Changin' (2000)
- Tony Joe White: Swamp Music: The Complete Monument Recordings (disc 4) (2006)
- The Pretty Things: Balboa Island (2007)
- Rocco DeLuca: The Village (2009)
- Francis Cabrel: Vise Le Ciel (2012)
- Rise Against: Chimes of Freedom: Songs of Bob Dylan Honoring 50 Years of Amnesty International (2012)
- David Lynch: The Big Dream (2013)
- Hans Theessink: Wishing Well (2013)
- Paula Cole: Ballads (2017)
- Karan Casey: Hieroglyphs That Tell the Tale (2018)
References
- ^ Gray, Michael, 1946- (2000). Song & dance man III : the art of Bob Dylan. Gray, Michael, 1946-. London: Continuum. ISBN 0-304-70762-7. OCLC 42049290.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link) - ^ Slade, Paul (2015). Unprepared to Die: America's Greatest Murder Ballads and the True Crime Stories That Inspired Them. Soundcheck Books. ISBN 9780992948078.
- ^ Margotin, Philippe; Guesdon, Jean-Michel (2015). Bob Dylan All the Songs: The Story Behind Every Track. Running Press. ISBN 9780316353533.
- ^ "Hollis Brown's South Dakota". The Celestial Monochord. 2006-03-15. Archived from the original on 2017-12-17. Retrieved 2017-01-26.
- ^ "Ballad of Hollis Brown". dylanchords.info. Retrieved 2021-01-03.
- ^ David Horowitz, "Bob Dylan: genius or commodity?" Peace News, 11/11/64.
- ^ "Ballad of Hollis Brown". YouTube video of his Westinghouse TV performance (1963). Archived from the original on 2021-12-22.
- ^ "Ballad of Hollis Brown | The Official Bob Dylan Site". www.bobdylan.com. Retrieved 2021-01-03.
- Matt Cowe and Arthur Dick. Acoustic Masters for Guitar. Wise Publications, 2004.
- Bob Dylan's official website. Retrieved 14 March 2006.
- Michael Gray. Song & Dance Man III: The Art of Bob Dylan. Continuum, 2000.
- Oliver Trager. Keys to the Rain: The Definitive Bob Dylan Encyclopedia. Billboard Books, 2004.
- v
- t
- e
- Bob Dylan
- The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan
- The Times They Are a-Changin'
- Another Side of Bob Dylan
- Bringing It All Back Home
- Highway 61 Revisited
- Blonde on Blonde
- John Wesley Harding
- Nashville Skyline
- Self Portrait
- New Morning
- Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid
- Dylan
- Planet Waves
- Blood on the Tracks
- The Basement Tapes
- Desire
- Street-Legal
- Slow Train Coming
- Saved
- Shot of Love
- Infidels
- Empire Burlesque
- Knocked Out Loaded
- Down in the Groove
- Oh Mercy
- Under the Red Sky
- Good as I Been to You
- World Gone Wrong
- Time Out of Mind
- "Love and Theft"
- Modern Times
- Together Through Life
- Christmas in the Heart
- Tempest
- Shadows in the Night
- Fallen Angels
- Triplicate
- Rough and Rowdy Ways
- Shadow Kingdom
Contemporary |
|
---|---|
Archival |
|
Hits |
|
---|---|
Themed |
|
Box sets |
|
- Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991
- Vol. 4: The Royal Albert Hall Concert
- Vol. 5: Bob Dylan Live 1975, The Rolling Thunder Revue
- Vol. 6: Bob Dylan Live 1964, Concert at Philharmonic Hall
- Vol. 7: No Direction Home: The Soundtrack
- Vol. 8: Tell Tale Signs: Rare and Unreleased 1989–2006
- Vol. 9: The Witmark Demos: 1962–1964
- Vol. 10: Another Self Portrait (1969–1971)
- Vol. 11: The Basement Tapes Complete
- Vol. 12: The Cutting Edge 1965–1966
- Vol. 13: Trouble No More 1979–1981
- Vol. 14: More Blood, More Tracks
- Vol. 15: Travelin' Thru, 1967–1969
- Vol. 16: Springtime in New York 1980–1985
- Vol. 17: Fragments – Time Out of Mind Sessions (1996–1997)
- From Newport to the Ancient Empty Street in L.A.
- Great White Wonder
- List of Basement Tapes songs
- 1967
- 1975
- England Tour (1965)
- World Tour (1966)
- Isle of Wight Festival (1969)
- Tour with the Band (1974)
- Rolling Thunder Revue (1975–1976)
- World Tour (1978)
- Gospel Tour (1979–80)
- European Tour (1984)
- True Confessions Tour (1986)
- Tour with the Grateful Dead (1987)
- Temples in Flames Tour (1987)
- Never Ending Tour
- Rough and Rowdy Ways World Wide Tour (2021–2024)
- Dont Look Back
- Eat the Document
- Renaldo and Clara
- Hard to Handle
- The 30th Anniversary Concert Celebration
- MTV Unplugged
- Masked and Anonymous
- No Direction Home
- I'm Not There
- Soundtrack
- 65 Revisited
- The Other Side of the Mirror: Bob Dylan Live at the Newport Folk Festival 1963–1965
- Trouble No More – A Musical Film
- Rolling Thunder Revue
- Shadow Kingdom
- A Complete Unknown
- Tarantula
- Writings and Drawings
- Chronicles: Volume One
- The Philosophy of Modern Song
- The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia
- Bob Dylan, Performing Artist
- Invisible Republic
- Down the Highway: The Life of Bob Dylan
- The Cambridge Companion to Bob Dylan
- Bob Dylan: Mixing Up the Medicine
- Sara Dylan (first wife)
- Carolyn Dennis (second wife)
- Jesse Dylan (son)
- Jakob Dylan (son)
- Recording Sessions
- The Band
- Traveling Wilburys
- Electric Dylan controversy
- Artists who have covered Dylan songs
- Joan Baez
- Suze Rotolo
- Helena Springs
- The Telegraph magazine
- Festival
- The Concert for Bangladesh
- Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid
- Hearts of Fire
- Highway 61 Interactive
- Theme Time Radio Hour
- Gotta Serve Somebody: The Gospel Songs of Bob Dylan
- Chimes of Freedom (album)
- The Lost Notebooks of Hank Williams
- Lost on the River: The New Basement Tapes
- Bob Dylan Center
- Category