Song of the Day 8/3: Elliot Lurie and Yonge Guns, “Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl)”
It’s been almost half a century since this pop confection topped the American singles chart for one week in 1972, but it’s still going strong, as evidenced by this new version by Elliot Lurie, who wrote and sang the song for Looking Glass, and the Canadian a cappella quartet Yonge Guns (named for a prominent Toronto thoroughfare).
Lurie’s voice still has the timbre that made the song stand out on the radio back then, and while I miss the subtle, beautifully arranged horn part of the original, the vocal arrangement by Yonge Guns singer Greg Mallett almost makes up for it.
The original song was an unlikely hit. Looking Glass was four guys who met at Rutgers University and played mostly at Jersey Shore bars as a cover band that mixed in a few originals. “Brandy” started out as Randy, the name of Lurie’s high school girlfriend, and was recorded several times in various studios before the final version was produced.
It was released as the B-side of the band’s first single, and would have sunk without a trace were it not for a Washington DJ who spun it for a few days. Every time he did the switchboard lit up; Lurie said that record company executives knew within two weeks that the song would be a million-seller. Its one week atop the chart interrupted a six-week run at No. 1 by Gilbert O’Sullivan’s “Alone Again (Naturally).” Technically, though, Looking Glass was not a one-hit wonder, because the band’s follow-up single, “Jimmy Loves Mary-Anne,” reached No. 33. Neither song was typical of the band’s blues-rock sound, which made for disappointment among concert-goers attracted by “Brandy.”
Though the song was scorned by rockers because of it fit in with the emerging soft-rock sound — the Eagles’ first hit, “Take It Easy” was on the charts at the same time — it’s had a long afterlife on TV and film soundtracks. It got a major boost when it was used not just on the soundtrack of “Guardians of the Galaxy 2” but as a plot point in the movie when its villain, Kurt Russell, calls it “one of Earth’s greatest musical compositions; perhaps its very greatest.”
Lurie, who had a long career scoring Hollywood films, laughed off that line. “I would say that is probably ‘Desperado’ by the Eagles.”
Here’s sort-of an answer record to ‘Brandy’ and a real cool tune in its own right. By a roots rocker named Sarah Borges, who I had in Arden twice. It’s called ‘Same Old 45’, and the same old 45 is Brandy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4t_NA_1v9kE
A surprisingly large corpus of critical attention has sprung up around “Brandy,” much of it investigating the mystery of its enduring appeal.
One interesting article pointed out that the background vocals never simply harmonize with the lead — they are basically singing a horn part, one that would have been overpowering if it were actually played by horns, while the horns stay somewhat muted, stepping into their usual role only during the bridge.
My brother, sister and I all got little transistor radios for Christmas in 1971. Just when WABC was inventing the “top 40” radio format – so we listened to this song A LOT. Here is what wikipedia says about WABC in that era: