Brown

"Brown" (or "brownness") is a concept associated with Ween. The term is often used to denote songs which feature prominent imperfections and unconventional sounds, presented proudly without editing.

Meaning

According to Dean Ween, "brown" means "fucked up in a good way". Deaner had picked up the term from his boss at Princeton Record Exchange, with his boss defining it as "when something is falling apart".

When interviewed, producer Andrew Weiss stated:

It's an aesthetic. It's initially probably scatological in origin. It's kind of like the best stuff you get, for me, and I think for Mickey and Aaron too, or the most interesting stuff — you know, stuff's always so well-orchestrated, or tries to be, when people make records, but the best sound you're gonna get out of a stompbox [distortion pedal] is when the battery's right at the point of dying and it sounds like it's being strangled or something. So it's kind of like those glorious mistakes are what you're lookin' for. But "brown" is really — it's a far-reaching concept. It's really not very complex or deep. Once you smell the brown, you know it when you see it.

Deaner later specified that the term is not scatological.

Mentions in Ween Songs

• Chocolate Town - "Sail brown bay to Chocolate Town"
• I Can't Put My Finger on It - "Is it brown, is it white, is it really out of sight?"
• I Don't Want to Leave You on the Farm - "Corn's turned brown"
• If You Could Save Yourself (You'd Save Us All) - "The trash caught fire when the leaves turned brown"
• Mutilated Lips - "Everything is turning brown"