Ken Scott on David Bowie and The Bewlay Brothers
“I was stone and he was wax So he could scream, and still relax, unbelievable.”
Those opening lines feel like a riddle, part nursery rhyme, part psychological sketch. They immediately place you inside the strange, unresolved world of The Bewlay Brothers, the closing track on Hunky Dory, and one of the most debated songs in David Bowie’s entire catalogue.
When I spoke with Ken Scott, he shared a story that perfectly captures Bowie’s mindset at the very end of the Hunky Dory sessions.
Right as the album was wrapping up, David came running into the studio one morning, visibly excited.
“I’ve got a new song. We’ve got to record it,” he said. “It’s called The Bewlay Brothers, but don’t listen to the lyrics.”
Ken, understandably, questioned that straight away.
“What do you mean, don’t listen to them?”
David’s response was classic Bowie.
“They don’t mean anything. I wrote it specifically for the American market, because they read something into anything.”
Meaning, Misdirection, and Bowie’s Quiet Joke
The brilliance, of course, is that The Bewlay Brothers has gone on to become one of Bowie’s most analysed and interpreted songs. Over the years, Ken told me he has heard six or seven completely different explanations of what the song is supposedly about, fractured identity, sibling relationships, childhood memories, psychological duality, autobiography, mythology.
And the punchline?
Ken believes Bowie probably agreed with every single one of them.
This was David at his most knowing and mischievous. He understood that ambiguity invites participation. Once a song is released into the world, the listener completes it. Meaning is not fixed, it is discovered, projected, argued over, and reshaped.
A Perfectly Unresolved Ending
As the final track on Hunky Dory, The Bewlay Brothers feels like a door closing quietly rather than a grand finale. After the melodic sweep of Life on Mars?, the swagger of Queen Bitch, and the introspection of Quicksand, Bowie ends the album with something opaque and unsettling.
There is no explanation offered. No neat resolution. Just atmosphere, suggestion, and space.
When Bowie said, “Don’t listen to the lyrics,” he was almost daring us.
Because he knew exactly what would happen next.