Someone Left Moonlight in My Heart: An Exaltation of Duncan Browne’s Music

In an era when the most popular musicians were the most outrageous, Duncan Browne and his Spanish guitar offered something entirely different – sensitivity, sophistication, artful baroque and progressive leanings. Browne’s foundation was that of classical training and with it, the ability to chart his own arrangements, buoyed by a flair for melodies so sweet and sad that they almost hurt to hear. At a time when most of his fellow countrymen desperately tried to sound American, Browne dared to embrace his British-ness, and although he favored unusual tunings, finger picking and classical guitar flourishes over power chords, don’t call him a folkie; as he explained to Strange Days magazine, “my music isn’t folk… I want to take it further afield.”

Browne also demonstrated a willingness to adapt to changing sounds and times not shared by many of his purist peers. Try to imagine Nick Drake toughing it out and forming an artsy glam band like Metro in the 70s or strumming a 12-string electric guitar with a cigarette in his lips at the dawn of the 80s while a video vixen in a leopard leotard paws at his leather pants. With his doe eyes, flowing hair, and satin voice whispering poetry, Duncan evoked the ethereal.

The baroque-glam-folk prince died in 1993, far too young after far too many music industry setbacks, leaving far too few people in-the-know about his staggering talents. It feels a bit like the stars have aligned to help this humble piece do its part to right this wrong, from Duncan’s widow Lin’s participation to input from his friend musician Nick Magnus and studio engineer Alan O’Duffy to literal stars of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame like Zombies lead singer Colin Blunstone and former Rolling Stones manager and Immediate Records founder Andrew Loog Oldham. Together they form a chorus of voices to sing Duncan’s praises and tell his story more fully than it’s been told before.

Our Greek tragedy with a Spanish guitar begins on March 25, 1947, when Duncan John Browne was born in Greater London (Northwood, Middlesex, England to be precise), the only son of British Royal Air Force Commodore Charles Duncan Alfred Browne and his wife Una, also employed by the RAF. Duncan’s widow Lin Cordoray told me, “I think Charles was quite a catch for her,” adding, “all the girls fancied the fighter pilots.” Duncan shared a birthday with Elton John, who seemingly received all the good fortune disseminated on that day. Asthma as a youth prevented Duncan from following in his father’s flight path, but this allowed him to develop his considerable creative talents. Lin explained, “Duncan was an only child, and as a teenager he immersed himself in practicing the guitar for hours every day. He taught himself to play classical guitar and played very well. His parents travelled a lot, wherever Duncan’s father’s job took the family, so they lived on various airforce bases. He went to public school, then won a place at drama school (The London academy of Music and Dramatic Art) where it quickly became apparent that he was more suited to composing music for plays, rather than acting in them. When he left drama school he was asked to write the music for a German film (he spoke German quite well) called ‘Zeit Fur Traumer’, in which he also acted.”

It was fabled Rolling Stones Manager Andrew Loog Oldham who first snapped up a young Duncan and his short-lived folk group Lorel (with pal Davy Morgan) for his new record label Immediate. At only 19, manager Andrew Loog Oldham had hustled The Rolling Stones into legendary rock god status, and become something of a legend himself (he was sometimes referred to as the band’s sixth member), and by 21 he had already started his own record label. In The Immediate Records Story, Simon Spence paints a vivid scene: “All involved in the label were threateningly young, devastatingly hip, and deeply committed to destroying the established old farts network that had controlled the 1960s industry thus far.” Into this maelstrom of hipness, the delicate baroque lovelies of Lorel recorded their first Bach-inspired single “Here and Now,” but the story goes that when Procol Harum’s Bach-inspired “A Whiter Shade of Pale” hit the 1967 charts, Lorel’s single was exiled to the vaults. On his website, producer Mike d’Abo (also of Manfred Mann fame) described the song as an “ambitious, ornate summer of love mix of cellos and choirboy harmonies [that] has acquired semi-mythical Holy Grail status amongst Duncan Browne followers and late 60’s baroque pop devotees alike.”

Lorel parted ways, but Oldham knew he’d found something special with Duncan. When I asked Andrew to share his first impressions of Duncan, he replied: “other worldly, attractive, mannered, confident.” Oldham encouraged him to record a solo album, and Duncan recruited a friend to add fanciful lyrics to his then-wordless new songs. Their engineer at Olympic Studios, Alan O’Duffy, had twisted the knobs for bands like The Rolling Stones, but he told me he’d never encountered anyone quite like Duncan Browne. O’Duffy remembered Duncan as an “intriguing character who played a nylon string acoustic guitar, in a classical guitar style, and really seemed to be a quintessential English young man,” albeit one “who wrote fairy tale songs.” When I asked Andrew Loog Oldham what stood out to him about the recording sessions for Give Me Take You, he shared that it was “the opportunity to just sit back and let it happen. I didn’t have to fight for anything, which was the norm in ’68. Alan O’Duffy loved the project, so I was covered. Duncan played most of the instruments and sang most of the vocal parts… Duncan was prepared. Preparation was king.” Duncan’s friend Colin Blunstone told me, “I was always particularly impressed at his ability to build up the sound of a choir in the studio using only his own voice.”

Tracks like the July ’68 single “On the Bombsite” and “Dwarf in a Tree” achieved pure baroque bliss that could hold more than a few candelabras to the majesty of any harpsichord-wielding competitors. The sound waves of “Gabilan” and “Give Me Take You” wash over you like a baptism into the grooviest of religions, with a chorus of voices sounding sacred as Gregorian chant or restorative as a Navajo healing song. Accordingly, Andrew professed, “Duncan was therapy in a time of madness. And I got to be in the studio for my therapy. How good is that?” Give Me Take You was released on December 31, 1968 to the fanfare of tastemaker John Peel, who called it “A very good and poetic LP” in Record Mirror and Billboard which called it “auspicious,” listed it as a “Special Merit Pick” and predicted it “should draw pop as well as folk interest.” A triptych of 3 different Duncans on the back cover puzzled American audiences, however. In Marchof ’69, Mary Campbell of the Associated Press praised the album as “peaceful” and “engaging rather than pretentious,” but she noted,“We don’t know anything about the group except that three young men are pictured and Duncan Browne is listed as the guitarist, vocalist and composer, with David Bretton writing words.” Papers from Sheboygan, Wisconsin to Bakersfield, California picked up the piece and spread the confusion. In an International Times review of Nick Drake’s Five Leaves Left, Mark Williams noted, “I don’t think I’ve been so impressed by an unknown singer/songwriter since I got the Duncan Browne album on Immediate.” (Yes, Duncan’s melancholy masterpiece came out first, if you’re keeping score here). The reviewer then gets sidetracked wondering why Immediate doesn’t send promo copies — a fair question, and indicative of bigger problems at the label.

Duncan’s interview with Strange Days magazine in September of 1970 finds him detailing ambitious, mind-reeling dreams for his second record with Immediate: “I had very high and lofty ideals about that one, which is probably why it never got released. It was going to be called, ‘Eighteen Ways to Live And One Way to Die’” he explains, “and it was to be a collection of songs about the life cycle of a man… just like Tchaikovsky’s ‘Pathétique.’ We had most of the songs written but Andrew wasn’t impressed, especially as the project would have involved huge symphony orchestras, choirs, etc., and would have cost about £40,000. Andrew was very sympathetic to what I was doing – and certainly no-one else at that time would have been in the slightest bit interested in my ideas – but as Immediate lost on the first album I suppose they weren’t too keen over all.” “Pathétique” (French for pathetic) was apparently a mistranslation from Tchaikovsky’s original Russian – he actually named his final symphony “Passionate,” and died just days after its premiere (possibly of suicide, making this symphony his suicide note). It’s easy to see why its high drama inspired the similarly passionate young Duncan, and it’s almost painful to consider what symphonies he could have produced if only he’d had the funds (and time) to fully realize his grand visions.

The truth is, as it approached its 5th year, the label whose slogan declared they were “Happy to be a part of the industry of human happiness” and brought the world classic albums like the Small Faces’ Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flakewas no longer the picture of happiness. “Immediate was going through a strange period,” Andrew explained to me. “We were still spending my money, but that would stop within a year. The Amen Corner would be the final mistake and Humble Pie the final blessing that came alas too late to change our destiny. My partner Tony Calder was going through a period where he loathed anything I championed. Duncan and Billy Nicholls fell victim to that and got no pragmatic promotion. Tony wanted big – I wanted good.” In his memoir Rolling Stoned, Oldham added that Browne “remains one of the artists I was proudest to stand in a room with and watch evolve.” Andrew’s friendship with Duncan would outlast the label (Lin confirmed that “they were still in touch right up until Duncan’s death”), but unfortunately, with the downfall of Immediate, Duncan would be forced to continue his evolution elsewhere.

In 1970, Browne turned to Bell Records and Mike Hurst, a producer he likely met through his friend Colin Blunstone, to release the lush McCartney-worthy single “Resurrection Joe,” with the softer, violin-filled “The Final Asylum” gracing the flipside. It’s so rare now that a copy of the original 7-inch sells for $263 on Discogs, a price that reveals both the quality of the songs and the reason for the demise of Browne’s brief liaison with Bell. Browne and Blunstone were flat-mates at London’s Ennismore Gardens, immortalized in Colin’s 1972 solo album of the same name. Record Collector’s Oregano Rathbone mused, “Man, that place must have been the epicentre of all the most deliciously indulged melancholy sighs in the cosmos.” If you were a groovy London lady in the 70s with a penchant for sensitive sad guys with pretty hair and soft music, this place was basically your Mecca. Colin recounted to me, “I first met Duncan in 1969 on a T.V. show in Berlin. He was promoting a single called ‘On The Bombsite’ from his first album ‘Give Me Take You’. I was backstage and heard this fantastic classical guitar being played and couldn’t resist knocking on his dressing room door and introducing myself. Dunc was a really easy person to talk to and when we realised we had friends in common back in London we decided to meet up for a beer when we got home. Later Duncan introduced me to his manager Patrick Lacy who had a flat in Ennismore Gardens where Duncan was staying and after they mentioned that there was a spare room I quite suddenly found myself moving into their flat in this most beautiful part of London.” Colin told me that Duncan proved to be “a very easy person to share a flat with. He was genuinely charming and had a great sense of style always looking very cool and was also quite an authority on food and wine so that he could make any meal seem like an ‘occasion’. I don’t think there were ever any arguments between us,” he added, “just three young ‘blokes’ making music and having fun!” And of course, there was plenty of music. Colin recalls, “All three of us played guitar though Duncan was the best player by far and I remember with great affection the times we regularly stayed up late into the night playing tunes and sharing our hopes and dreams.” Duncan helped inspire and encourage Colin to see himself as the songwriter he was.

Browne took his dreams for his next magnum opus to hotshot producer Mickie Most, who’d conjured chart-toppers for everyone from the Animals to Donovan and soon-to-be glam queen Suzi Quatro (who would sing background vocals on Duncan’s second album). In her memoir, Quatro mused, “Now I was a huge Donovan fan, especially of the production. But I’d always wondered about the ego of a producer who printed on the back of his albums ‘produced by Mickie Most… a Mickie Most production.’ Did he have to say it twice?” Undeterred, Browne’s album on RAK Records finds him seducing ears on both acoustic and electric guitar and experimenting with bursts of dramatic synthesizer on songs like “Ragged Rain Life.” After working with a lyricist for his first album, we finally get to hear Duncan in his own words, and they are pure poetry — refined, evocative, mysterious and even suggestive at times (“Let the lazy trade winds play with your hair / But let me do the rest…”). He exudes what one Amazon reviewer (former Creem writer Janis Schacht!) terms “a heady sexuality.” Songs like “Babe Rainbow” hit you just as strongly between the ears as between the… well, other places. “She had diamonds in her teeth,” Browne croons, “She wore a rib-stitched, skin tight, sequined skirt / With nothing on beneath”). It’s hard to imagine that Duncan didn’t feel comfortable writing lyrics for his debut given that on his first attempt he reveals he can play with words just as artfully as he can play that Spanish guitar. On the fiery “Last Time Around,” Browne unleashes what sounds like a stirring condemnation of his experience in the music industry grind thus far: “They spun me out over the city / They bled some music from my veins / Now I know that no other man / Will ever do the same to me again / Like a caged bird / I have never been heard / For I took their word / The last time around.” The single “Journey,” which hit the British charts at 23, finds Browne assessing where he’s been and where he’s going as his fingers travel madly across the strings. The journey he’s embarking upon feels perilous, maybe even doomed, and he doesn’t have much to show for it yet (“Oh what a joke these 24 years have been,” he sighs), but he concludes that it’s all in what you choose to focus on along the way: “Come up and see the world / It’s like a ship going down / It’s running aground / It’s all over / But those flying fishes are going to jump up and smile / Every league, every mile to terra nova.”

RAK ran an ad in Billboard in September of 1972 with a fetching, contemplative photo of the longhaired singer reading: “Though still in his early twenties, Duncan Browne has built up a reputation and a following few British singer/songwriters can match. His first album is considered an underground classic. His forthcoming Mickie Most-produced single, ‘Journey’ (currently Top 20 in England) should make everyone aware of his incredible talents.” “Journey” was a hit, so it did to an extent – Browne was sharing stages with rock stars like Lou Reed at this point, though his gentler songs seem ill-suited to loud, cavernous venues — but by the time the full self-titled album came out in ’73, the record buying public’s focus had apparently already moved on to the next shiny object (and there were a lot of shiny objects – this was the dawn of glam, after all).

The biting rock and roll strains of Browne’s second (and final) RAK single “Send Me the Bill for Your Friendship” were apparently written especially for Mickie: “You used to be such a good friend,” Browne chides, “I used to keep you amused / But now I feel like all the others / I feel I’m just being used / I’m well aware of your reputation / And I know that you’re a hard man to cross / Well, you just send me the bill for your friendship / And I’ll tell you how much it cost.” Lin Cordoray explained to me, “As I understand it, Duncan and Mickie split acrimoniously… Duncan felt he didn’t have a fair contract.” And in case there’s any doubt, she confirmed, “Yes, that song was written about Mickie!” Colin agreed, adding, “’The Last Time Around’ and ‘Send Me The Bill For Your Friendship’ were both protests at the unfairness of the music industry.” RAK Records let him go soon after the single’s release, but Duncan went out swinging.

After another disappointing setback, 1973 and ‘74 saw Duncan plotting his next moves and lending his considerable talents out to his friends. He played and sang harmonies with folk singer Tom Yates on his album Love Comes Well Armed, co-writing two songs including the lovely “Dear Life” which features Duncan on piano. He also contributed classical guitar to pal Colin Blunstone’s solo album Journey recorded at Abbey Road Studios. Record Collector’s Oregano Rathbone praised “Duncan Browne’s transcendental nylon-string guitar” on the track “Keep the Curtains Closed Today.” Browne also played guitar on fellow Immediate Records label refugee Twinkle’s next studio effort. With her 60s hits like “Terry” and “Golden Lights” (later made famous anew by The Smiths) then gathering dust, the spritely blond singer and ex-girlfriend of Brian Jones felt eager to revive her career, but her model boyfriend died in a plane crash during the recording and the album was shelved until 2003. If the lilting, angelic strums of Duncan’s classical guitar on Twinkle’s ode to her boyfriend, “Michael Hannah” can’t conjure eternal bliss, than nothing can.

The following year, Duncan, Rod Argent, Colin Blunstone, and friend David Jones worked on a volume of poetry together called Songs Without Music, which was publishedthrough Bongi Books in January of 1976. Musician Wesley Stace (better known as John Wesley Harding), fellow Duncan Browne devotee and proud owner of a copy of this ultra rare book, graciously shared Duncan’s poems with me. Out of the confines of song structure, and with the sting of betrayal still fresh, we see a Duncan between these pages with more teeth and nails, determined not to settle into a life of domesticity yet, unless it was a marriage to his music. His poems are gorgeous, biting, honest and utterly revealing, filled with potent Plath-ian turns of phrase like, “You faded like a pressed flower into a taxi,” “strangling my sheepskin coat / such a coward” and “I grow flowers / on amplifiers.” They provide incredible insight into his life thus far, from his stern father and schooling to the dissolution of his first musical partnership with his best friend, to his romantic entanglements. Sometimes his meanings are obscured, but through it all, the flames of his musical ambitions sear through the faded pages, and in the following excerpt from a longer poem called “Free,” there is no doubt who Mr. Most is:

“You’re free” said Mr Most
Maker of Stars as we stood
bristling at each other in Mayfair
pride can be expensive I was told
flaming in my bullet-proof vest I turned
& lit a last symbolic cigarette
& disappeared forever
Now I am more free than ever
self-possessed alone & not alone
I walk naked and cocksure
my flat has a soft carpet
my lover is beautiful & intelligent
“You’re free” she says consistently
handing me a clean pair of jeans
I have stopped smoking now
rude health sings in my blood
warm vegetarian cooking
in the kitchen
& yes
all these freedoms
have made a prisoner of me

Newly published poet Browne took the unexpected next step of forming a glam rock band with Peter Godwin and Sean Lyons called Metro. Lin shared that Duncan and Peter “met in the Castle pub in Holland Park, in London,” explaining, “Peter really liked Duncan’s music and made it his mission to work with him.” Together they produced songs more artful, brooding and sophisticated than many of their bedazzled contemporaries, as with everything Duncan touched (see how he weaves his classical guitar flourishes into the epic 8-minute track “Flame” and prepare to swoon over the breathtaking melody and melancholy keyboards of “One Way Night”). A video of Metro performing on German television opens with the three members strolling down the streets of Hamburg, suitcases in hand, all giant sunglasses, flowing hair, pouting lips and leather pants, just the epitome of 70s male glamour, and every breathy, drama-dripping song on the album more than lives up to the promise of the devastating glamour they projected, but unfortunately for their prospects at success, the BBC deemed their 1977 single “Criminal World” too indecent for the airwaves. “Maybe you’re not ready for this kind of love,” they sang on their debut album, and it certainly seemed like the world wasn’t ready for Metro yet. Six years later, all that changed when David Bowie recorded their single for his massive hit album Let’s Dance. They did not go unnoticed — the Houston Daily Cougar called Metro “no ordinary rock band,” and “very cerebral rock” with “superb harmonies between lead singer Peter Godwin and Duncan Browne.” But with styles changing yet again, Browne parted ways with the band after the debut album. Lin explained that Duncan and Peter “were a formidable writing team, but both had very forceful personalities.”

The late 70s were a manly time. Disco died a violent death in a Chicago stadium full of blown up records, punk anti-hero Sid Vicious met his end with a needle in his arm choking on his vomit, the mustaches and muscles of This Old House first hammered their way onto television screens, and rock critic Greil Marcus, who praised Give Me Take You as “Pre-Raphaelite rock, and one of a kind” used the word “effete” in his review of Duncan’s new 1978 solo album The Wild Places, although even Greil had to admit that “he can also be quite seductive.” Billboard, less concerned with maintaining a tough image, pronounced it, “Sophisticated and sensitive,” observing, “in addition to playing guitars and keyboards, Browne also plays percussion on this LP” (he also produced it!), while noting that he sounds “not yet jaded but getting there.” The album hit 174 on the Billboard charts and the sultry title track with its femme fatale (model Mary Dobson, who was in a relationship with Duncan and who would later be the mother of his child) climbed to the top ten in the Netherlands. In the gorgeously bittersweet, almost-power-pop standout song on impermanence, “The Crash,” Duncan asserts, “I feel so strange / But I don’t want to look back, I want to keep the change, ‘cause / It doesn’t last forever.” Starting to feel jaded or not, Duncan’s ambition and drive to create pushed him to stay in step with (or a few steps in front of) his increasingly odd, overstated times, though he never compromised his ideals. You will find many albums from this time period with scantily clad vixens on the cover, but you will find very few if any that feature scantily clad vixens on the cover and reference Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du Mal, as Browne does in “Roman Vecu.”

In 1979, Duncan poured his poetic heart into what would be his final statement as a solo artist, Streets of Fire, which he again produced himself. The album opens with the breathy “Fauvette,” which flutters and beckons from the speakers like its warbler namesake. The music video featured a bedroom-eyed Duncan fingerpicking his Les Paul among images of reclining tigers and pausing to brood with girlfriend Mary Dobson over red wine and cigarettes during the guitar solo. Songs like “Nina Morena” feel like a reaffirmation of his roots with Spanish guitar, floating vocal harmonies, and a Pablo Neruda quote, but others like the title track show him venturing into fiery electric guitar experiments, while the atmospheric closing track features field recordings of laughter and the ocean washing over wistful, pining guitar. James Riordan of The Star newspapers raved, “there really isn’t a weak cut on the album” and pronounced Browne “both alluring and innovative.” Billboard listed it under their “Recommended LPs” in October of ‘79 and wrote, “Browne’s self-penned tunes and musical ability make this an interesting followup to his hit last year, ‘Wild Places.’ The eight cuts offered here are full of the art rock influence that distinguishes his work.” Once again, mainstream audiences largely missed his distinguished message. In the states, shamelessly catchy, straightforward songs like the Knack’s “My Sharona,” Rod Stewart’s “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy” and schmaltzy earworms about a preference for “piña coladas and getting caught in the rain” dominated the charts.

Finding himself record contract-less again and adrift in the tacky, uber-commercial 80s, Browne found a niche applying his knack for dramatic, atmospheric arrangements in the service of heightening other people’s stories, writing scores for film, theater and television, and even earning a #68 single in the U.K. from his moody soundtrack for the television series Travelling Man in 1984. It was during his work on this project that he met and fell in love with Lin Cordoray. Lin told me, “We met whilst Duncan was writing the theme tune and incidental music for a television series called ‘Travelling Man’. I was working in the Casting Department of the television company who were producing it. A mutual friend introduced us – Duncan’s best friend, Sebastian Graham-Jones (one of the directors of the ‘Travelling Man’ series). I remember Duncan + guitar sweeping into the office like Mr. Darcy, with his flowing locks and silk shirt… every girl in the office swooned. We met again a few weeks later at a charity event at The Hippodrome in Leicester Square and danced the night away, and then we started dating. My parents were both really ill at that time and during the week Duncan was filming in Manchester with Sebastian, so initially we only managed to see each other about once a week. I fell for him straight away, but his life was complicated – he had a baby (Max) with an ex-girlfriend, and it was a rocky road. At this time he was living alone in a temporarily rented flat which he wasn’t happy with, but he eventually found an nice apartment in Notting Hill and his flatmate was a lovely girl called Joan, who later married the actor John Hurt – and at that point Duncan came to live with me. Thanks Joan!”

The 1980s also found Duncan venturing back into the studio with Sebastian Graham-Jones and his old friend Colin for a new musical project, Camino. Colin recalled, “Duncan and I got together in the 80’s with the idea of recording a few tracks together,” but noted, “We were slightly handicapped by Sebastian’s work schedule which often took him out of the country for long periods of time and though we did record several really good tracks unfortunately never quite took the step into touring and performing.” He did share a fond memory of one wine-soaked recording session that invoked some of the past revelries of their Ennismore Gardens glory days: “‘Camino’ were in a small studio on one of the early sessions and it seemed fairly obvious that the studio speakers were blown. I couldn’t imagine any good coming out of a session where we couldn’t hear accurately what we were playing and was greatly relieved when a delivery of large cardboard boxes arrived believing them to be new speakers. Little did I know that Sebastian had arranged a wine tasting actually in the studio and after we had made our way through the first few wine boxes I must admit we never had any more trouble with the speakers! My only problem was trying to put one foot in front of the other as I attempted to find my way home from that splendid ‘Camino’ adventure!” Unfortunately, these Camino tracks would not see a release until after Duncan’s death.

By the early nineties, the fates seemed to finally be shining on Duncan’s career. Sony secured the rights for a U.S. release of Immediate albums and selected Give Me Take You as one of the records to be reissued on the exciting newfangled compact disc format. Duncan enjoyed a newfound flurry of interest and respect for his music across the pond in the wake of the release. But this belated recognition was bittersweet — he knew now that his days were numbered. Lin explained, “Unfortunately, Duncan’s diagnosis with cancer came late. He’d been worried about his health for a couple of years before he was properly diagnosed. He accepted the diagnosis with grace and never once complained throughout his illness – even through the worst times, he kept his sense of humour. He was diagnosed with bowel cancer, which unfortunately metastasised a few years later into his liver.” Making music now became a race against the clock. Musician Nick Magnus told me that after meeting Duncan through mutual friends in 1986, they had “worked on several of his TV scores together, and during those times often discussed making an album.” They put these plans in motion when Duncan lost a commission for a song he composed for television. “We demo’d a further seven songs,” Nick explained, and “Duncan was bravely pragmatic, acknowledging that his illness might overtake him before we could finish the album. It was agreed that if the worst should happen, I would take responsibility for overseeing the album’s completion.”

Duncan was only 46 when the worst happened. “He was working and writing music right up until the end of his life,” Lin told me. “Music was always his first love. Max second. I was third – and I’ll happily take that! We were together for 10 fabulous years.” Nick Magnus kept his promise to release a final record of his friend’s music, Songs of Love and War, including acoustic and electric pieces referencing everything from Rainer Werner Fassbinder to Tennessee Williams, along with compositions for stage and film and Camino tracks. Nick and friends signed off the album liner notes with: “From all of us, a dedication of love to Duncan Browne.” Nick told me, “I frequently wonder what might have been if Duncan were still here. I like to think that he would have been recognized as one of the world’s best score composers, songwriters and guitarists. Sadly, in these times of dumbing down it’s often the highest art that is overlooked – Duncan had a phrase that sums it up perfectly: ‘the celebration of mediocrity.’ Nevertheless, his fine legacy exists for all to discover, and for me the man and the music have been an inspiration to always achieve one’s best without compromise, and for that I will always thank him.” Those who did discover Duncan’s music became passionate proselytizers, including Eleanor Friedberger of The Fiery Furnaces and Australian psych band The Babe Rainbow, named after one of his most unforgettable songs. “I really wasn’t aware of his popularity or cult status until after his death,” Lin confessed to me, “when hundreds of amazing messages started pouring in from people all over the world – how proud I felt!” Colin Blunstone remembered, “Duncan was a sublime artist who never really received the recognition he deserved and who was cruelly taken from us far too early. His songs are timeless and I never tire of hearing his wonderful music that once stopped me in my tracks all those years ago in Berlin.”

In one of the most gloriously affecting ballads he ever wrote, “My Only Son,” Duncan Browne sang, “So much is redirected before it can start / But someone left moonlight in my heart.” “Someone left moonlight in my heart” also pretty much perfectly describes how it feels in your chest after you listen to a Duncan Browne record. In those heady early days of space travel, he addressed the moon directly on “The Martlet” to stunning effect, singing, “Pale old moon, they have got you now, shuffling around in your sand / Through my telescope I salute you, I sympathize, I understand…” And I feel that way looking at him through my writer’s telescope, pouring over every lyric, poem, and article, talking to his friends and loved ones, seeing his genius, feeling his determination, wincing at every setback – I salute him, I sympathize with him, and I think that I understand. Duncan’s old friend Andrew Loog Oldham once said, “You have to jump into the pool before you know whether there’s water in it.” There wasn’t much water in the pool when Duncan Browne jumped, but it’s not too late for us to rectify that. Tell your friends – especially your friends in advertising. Sometimes all it takes is one Volkswagen commercial to make a singular talent and a tragic death not be in vain. words / donna kern

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