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100|Top 100
Brown-Eyed Girl
Van Morrison
By 1966 Van Morrison was, in the eyes of the world, a 21 year-old has-been. He was back living with his parents in Northern Ireland, following a few brief moments of chart fame (‘Gloria’, ‘Here Comes The Night’, ‘Baby Please Don’t Go’) with the Belfast R&B band |
 Song facts |
| Composer |
Van Morrison |
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| Genre |
Pop |
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| Album |
Blowin' Your Mind! |
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| Year Of Release |
1967 |
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Them. However, Bert Berns, Them’s American producer, still had faith in the young Morrison’s abilities - and it was Berns, a record executive and songwriter (‘Twist & Shout’, ‘Piece Of My Heart’), who paid for Van to undertake some solo sessions in New York during the early part of 1967. In the decades since, those sessions have been endlessly recycled on disc, much to Morrison’s distaste. But at the time, even the legendarily grumpy one must have been grateful: Berns applied his keen commercial ear to fashioning Van’s introspective and personal material - and one of the songs that surfaced, ‘Brown Eyed Girl’, gave Morrison a career. Berns immediately recognised the song’s hit potential and it was rush-released as a single in America, where it duly became a hit. Many years later, the notoriously terse Morrison admitted that ‘Brown Eyed Girl’ had begun life as “a calypso thing”, vaguely inspired by Lewis Carroll’s novel Sylvie & Bruno. Undeniably catchy and uncharacteristically upbeat, ‘Brown Eyed Girl’ established Van in America.
Van Morrison on his musical influences |
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Van Morrison's first musical love was American black music, but music closer to home has been an inspiration to him as well. "There's always been thisFolk element since Astral Weeks".
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Other versions |
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 Reggae veterans Steel Pulse covered Brown Eyed Girl on their 'Rage and Fury' album from 1997.
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Songwriting tips Ground rules and advice on making the partnership run smoothlyin Writing Relationships.Being on stage is nervewracking but part of the process. And, you never know who's watching. More in Performing. |
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