Dark Hollow

SONG Dark Hollow

WRITTEN BY Bill Browning

PERFORMED BY Bill Browning, The Grateful Dead

APPEARS ON B-side to "Borned With the Blues" (1958);
Bear's Choice (History of the Grateful Dead, Vol. 1) (1973), Three from the Vault (2007), others

I couldn't find out much about the history of this song. I first heard it on the Grateful Dead's Bear's Choice, an album critically derided on its release in 1973, although it did offer their first release of "Dark Hollow." I assumed for years that it was either a traditional number or borrowed from someone like Lefty Frizell.

But, according to the Grateful Dead Lyric & Song Finder, "Dark Hollow" was actually the B-side of a single recorded in 1958 by one Bill Browning. Other than that he was from Wayne County, West Virginia, fronted a rockabilly band called the Echo Valley Boys, and passed away in 1978 at the ripe young age of 57, not much is known about Browning. How an unknown late-50's B-side came to the attention of the Dead's Bob Weir is equally a mystery, although Bobby has a gift for discovering and elevating obscurities: After he learned "Me & My Uncle" from John Phillips, it became the most performed song in the Dead's catalog even though Phillips himself never recorded it.

However Weir came across "Dark Hollow," he knew a winner when he heard one. It's a song about madness and the fever of unrequited love, and how the former -- signified by the dark hollow -- is preferable to the latter. Punctuated by a train whistle, that great country symbol of loneliness, the lyrics of the song are simple yet eloquent: It's not better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. In fact, it's better to go mad ("...knowing that you're gone/Would cause me to lose my mind...") than to even contemplate the thought of your loved one in the arms of another. Contrary to what Pete Townshend and The Who might think, love is for keeping because the alternative when it's gone is darkness, loneliness, and riding the rails with the misfits, outcasts, and lunatics.

The Dead perform "Dark Hollow" with as a folk-bluegrass standard, assisted greatly by Jerry Garcia's keening harmony behind Weir's rock-style vocals. The Browning version is pure melodrama, replete with train whistles. Browning recorded from 1957-1960 and left a small discography. He likely didn't write another song close to the league of "Dark Hollow," but he at least achieved greatness once. That's more than most can say.

LYRICS
I'd rather be in some dark hollow
Where the sun don't ever shine
Than to be in some big city
In a small room with a girl on my mind

So blow your whistle freight train
Take me far on down the track
I'm going away, I'm leaving today
I'm going but I ain't coming back

I'd rather be in some dark hollow
Where the sun don't ever shine
Than to see you another man's darling
And know that you'll never be mine

So blow your whistle freight train
Take me far on down the track
I'm going away, I'm leaving today
I'm going but I ain't coming back

I'd rather be in some dark hollow
Where the sun don't ever shine
Than to be home alone, knowing that you're gone
Would cause me to lose my mind

So blow your whistle freight train
Take me far on down the track
I'm going away, I'm leaving today
I'm going but I ain't coming back

I'm going away, I'm leaving today
I'm going but I ain't coming back

Here's Bill Browning's rendition. Dig the train whistle!



The Grateful Dead sing "Dark Hollow" in 1971: