Brown Into Gold
I've been talking a lot about Van Morrison's 'Brown Eyed Girl' and the recent news that it's been played 10 million times on US radio. The singer may have mixed feelings about the song, but I'd say a few bank managers and accountants may be more admiring.
Radio and press people have been asking me about the record's life since 1967. Many releases from that time have fallen out of fashion but 'Brown Eyed Girl' still holds up. It's an unapologetic pop song, about young love and pure experience, followed by the sadness and compromise of adult life. You dig?
I've met around five people who claim to be the Brown Eyed Girl. A few of them don't even have brown eyes. And some of the others have the most flimsy narratives. Several have assured me that the 'stadium' in the lyric is the Oval football ground in east Belfast. Another theory is that the action takes place around the Shankill Road.
Van Morrison is largely protective of his songs, and he doesn't do literal. I'm rather glad about this. I'm not sure what 'Madam George' means, but there's a universe of personal significance in the recording for me. So I might want to locate the romance of the 1967 hit in the green grass around Parkgate Drive, but essentially, it takes place in the heart.
Bert Berns was the record's producer. The New Yorker had previously worked with Van and Them on 'Here Comes The Night' and was the pop-soul architect of sessions by The Drifters, Ben E King and the Isley Brothers. He doesn't miss a trick on 'Brown Eyed Girl'. It has a cool guitar riff that's a bit Spanish Harlem. The rhythm is almost calypso, there's a bass guitar breakdown and a perfect sha-la-la moment that was later borrowed on 'Mr Jones' by Counting Crows. Meantime, wee Van sings it like there was never a more deserving girl in the world. A classic, then.