Brown Eyed Girl
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
"Brown Eyed Girl" is a hit song written and recorded in 1967 by singer and songwriter Van Morrison and produced by Bang Records chief Bert Berns. The song was first released on the album Blowin' Your Mind as Morrison's first single as a solo artist and became his biggest hit. The song's nostalgic lyrics about a former love were considered too racy at the time to be played on many radio stations, so a radio-edit of the song was released which excised the lyrics "making love in the green grass." This edited version appears on some copies of the compilation album The Best of Van Morrison. However the remastered CD seems to have the bowdlerized lyrics in the packaging but the original "racy" lyrics on the disc.
The song was originally titled "Brown-Skinned Girl" but Morrison later changed it to "Brown Eyed Girl" because he felt it sounded better [1].
In April 2005, the White House announced that "Brown Eyed Girl" gets regular rotation on George W. Bush's iPod. Morrison announced before a university performance in England: "Yeah, it's good to hear things like that, you know. But I would have preferred if it was a new song." [2]
The song has been covered by many diverse artists including
- Aki Sirkesalo (in Finnish as Punatukkainen)
- Barenaked Ladies
- Blind Willie McTell
- Bob Dylan
- Bruce Springsteen
- Busted
- Buster Poindexter
- Creedance Clearwater Revival
- Del Amitri
- Everclear
- Green Day
- Howie Day
- Ian Matthews
- Indigo Girls
- Jimmy Buffett
- John Mayer
- John Valby (obscene parody)
- Lagwagon (studio and live)
- Laurel Aitken
- McFly
- Me First and the Gimme Gimmes
- Moxy Früvous
- MxPx
- Normaal
- Pennywise
- Rockapella
- Sex Pistols
- Skatallica (commonly mislabeled as Reel Big Fish)
- Steel Pulse
- Voice Male
- Weezer
- Ziggy Marley
