Ooh - ooh - ooh - ooh
Its Mr Brown Mr Brown is a clown who rides to town in a coffin.
Well, here he comes In the top is ... three rows on top and two inside there.
Oh what a confusion! Ooh yeah yeah!
What a botheration! Ooh now now!

Who is Mr Brown? I wanna know now!
He is nowhere to be found.
From Mandeville to slide-a-ville, coffin runnin around,
Upsetting, upsetting, upsetting the town,
Asking for Mr Brown.
From Mandeville to slide-a-ville, coffin runnin around,
upsetting, upsetting, upsetting the town,
Asking for Mr Brown.
I wanna know who is Mr Brown?
Is Mr Brown controlled by remote?

O-o-oh, calling duppy conqueror,
I'm the ghost-catcher!
This is your chance, oh big, big Bill bull-bucka,
Take your chance! Prove yourself! Oh, yeah!

Down in parade
People runnin like a masquerade.
The police make a raid,
But the people - oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah - they think it
fade.

What a thing in town
Crows chauffeur-driven around,
Skankin' as if they had never known
The man they call �Mr Brown�.

I can tell you where hes from now:
From Mandeville to slide-a-ville, coffin runnin around,
Upsetting upsetting upsetting the town,
Asking for Mr Brown.
From Mandeville to slide-a-ville -





Lyrics submitted by feelin da rithim

Mr. Brown song meanings
Add Your Thoughts

16 Comments

sort form View by:
  • +1
    General Comment

    this song is fucking amazing!

    Debaser891on October 22, 2008   Link
  • +1
    General Comment

    yikes... OK, settle down, drug conspiricists...

    the song is about an event that happened in JA in the fall of 1970. there was a story about a 3-wheeled coffin with three "crows" (a vulture in JA is commonly called a John Crow, the 3 "crows" atop a 3 wheeled coffin is an old bit of Jamaican folklore) running about the countryside, scaring the crap out of people.

    some back story: at the time, the belief in the supernatural was very common among ordinary Jamaicans, especially those who came from the country. to this day, you can still find perfectly intelligent and reasonable people who insist that duppies, obeah, and spirits in general are all too real (allegedly, including a former PM)

    the story started somewhere by word of mouth in the country somewhere, and soon the story spread...hence, the "from Mandeville to Sligoville" lyric.

    by the time the story eventually reached Spanish Town and West Kingston, someone had "seen it", and the story became more embellished as time went on. at one point there were hundreds of people out looking for the coffin downtown around the Parade Square area, and even barging into the notorious Tivoli Gardens to have a look.

    the three crows were apparently dressed in suits and asking people for a "Mr. Brown", people were fainting, a Spanish Town cop "shot at it", a boy's foot allegedly got run over by the coffin, etc. etc.... and yet no one could give a credible first hand account.

    as one might imagine, this made for 1) great comedy, or 2) "rahhh-tid! serious bumbu-clot duppy business!", depending on your beliefs. it all made the Oct. 29, 1970 Gleaner, with a front page article describing the goings-on. there were other "Mr. Brown" songs put out at the time, since it was such a newsworthy "event".

    every great once in a while, it's still possible to read of "duppy sightings" that make the paper. there was one back in 2010 of a boy in St. Catherine who was being bothered constantly by a spirit. newspaper and TV reports it just like regular news....

    nunayaon August 04, 2012   Link
  • 0
    General Comment

    explosive song

    mikadoon July 29, 2010   Link
  • 0
    General Comment

    This song is about a duppy (Jamaican patois word for ghost,spirit) named mr brown. You can notice on the part where it says: O-o-oh, calling duppy conqueror, I'm the ghost-catcher! This is your chance, oh big, big Bill bull-bucka, (bull-bucka is another word for bad soul,spirit) Take your chance! Prove yourself! Oh, yeah!

    Kreamlingdudeon December 11, 2010   Link
  • 0
    General Comment

    Bob Marley is a lyrical genius and this song proves my point. Cant get enough of his talent. We need more musicians like this.

    rastaheart36on May 06, 2011   Link
  • 0
    General Comment

    Mr Brown is a street name for Heroin hence the reference to coffins and "Crows chauffeur-driven around, Skankin' as if they had never known The man they call �Mr Brown�."

    receptioniston September 08, 2011   Link
  • 0
    General Comment

    Heroin would be my guess.

    joejefferyCTon February 21, 2012   Link
  • 0
    General Comment

    "slide-a-ville" should be "Sligoville", a town in Jamaica. I also think it is about heroin.

    myshkerson May 15, 2012   Link
  • 0
    General Comment

    at the time, The Wailers were recording a lot at Randy's Studio, located on North Parade and right at the epicenter of the mass search for the elusive coffin and the three well-dressed John Crows atop it..... and right around the corner from Randy's was Idler's Rest, a hang out for many musicians and singers.

    additionally, Marley had a small record store nearby on either Orange or King St., and lived just west of the old downtown at the southern end of Trench Town, right across from Spanish Town Rd. - he lived and worked in the very area where all of the "Mr. Brown" mania happened to occur.

    so it would have been a fantastical story to witness, and even better to write a song about since topical events were a favorite subject of Jamaican music.

    nunayaon August 04, 2012   Link
  • 0
    General Comment

    First line should be "Whooooo-ooooo-ooooo......is Mr. Brown?"

    mwanteroon March 16, 2013   Link

Add your thoughts

Log in now to tell us what you think this song means.

Don’t have an account? Create an account with SongMeanings to post comments, submit lyrics, and more. It’s super easy, we promise!

More Featured Meanings

Album art
When We Were Young
Blink-182
This is a sequel to 2001's "Reckless Abandon", and features the band looking back on their clumsy youth fondly.
Album art
Plastic Bag
Ed Sheeran
“Plastic Bag” is a song about searching for an escape from personal problems and hoping to find it in the lively atmosphere of a Saturday night party. Ed Sheeran tells the story of his friend and the myriad of troubles he is going through. Unable to find any solutions, this friend seeks a last resort in a party and the vanity that comes with it. “I overthink and have trouble sleepin’ / All purpose gone and don’t have a reason / And there’s no doctor to stop this bleedin’ / So I left home and jumped in the deep end,” Ed Sheeran sings in verse one. He continues by adding that this person is feeling the weight of having disappointed his father and doesn’t have any friends to rely on in this difficult moment. In the second verse, Ed sings about the role of grief in his friend’s plight and his dwindling faith in prayer. “Saturday night is givin’ me a reason to rely on the strobe lights / The lifeline of a promise in a shot glass, and I’ll take that / If you’re givin’ out love from a plastic bag,” Ed sings on the chorus, as his friend turns to new vices in hopes of feeling better.
Album art
Trouble Breathing
Alkaline Trio
While the obvious connections with suicide or alcoholism could be drawn easily, more subtly this song could be about someone who views the world through a negative lens constantly and how as much as the writer tries to show the beauty in the world, this person refuses to see it. It's one or another between the rope and the bottle. There is no good option for this person. They can't see it. Skiba sings it in a kind of exasperated way like He's tired of hearing this negative view constantly and just allowing that person to continue feeling the way they feel knowing he can't do anything about it. You can hear it when he says maybe you're a vampire.
Album art
Sunglasses at Night
Corey Hart
In the 1980s, sunglasses were a common fashion for people who wanted to adopt a "tough guy" persona (note all the cop shows from that era -- Simon & Simon, Miami Vice, etc. -- where the lead characters wore shades). So I think this song is about a guy who wears shades as a way of hiding his insecurity after learning that his girlfriend is cheating on him. He's trying to pretend that he's a "tough guy" to hide the fact that his girlfriend's affair is disturbing him.
Album art
System
Mel And Kim
Just listening for the 784,654th time....and it's just perfect in every way. Just incredible. The only reason it was remade was to scoop up a boatload of money from a more modern and accepting audience. But it is a completely different song than the other one that sounds slapped together in a few takes without a thought for the meaning. This song captivates me still, after 50+ years. Takes me to the deep South and the poverty of some who lived thru truly hard times. And the powerful spirit of a poor young girl being abandoned to her future with only a red dress and her wits to keep her alive. She not only stayed alive, she turned her hard beginnings around, became self sufficient, successful and someone with respect for herself. She didn't let the naysayers and judgers stop her. She's the one sitting in the drivers seat at the end. So, not a song about a poor girl, but a song of hope and how you can rise up no matter how far down you started. There is a huge difference between a singer who simply belts out a song that is on a page in front of them, and someone who can convey an entire experience with their voice. Telling not just a story with words, but taking you inside it and making you feel like you are there, with their interpretation.