"Golden Brown" | ||||
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Single by the Stranglers | ||||
from the album La folie | ||||
B-side | "Love 30" | |||
Released | 11 January 1982[1] | (UK)|||
Studio | The Manor Studio (Shipton-on-Cherwell) | |||
Genre | ||||
Length | 3:30 | |||
Label | Liberty BP 407 (UK, 7-inch) | |||
Songwriter(s) | ||||
Producer(s) | ||||
The Stranglers singles chronology | ||||
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The Stranglers singles chronology | ||||
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Music video | ||||
"Golden Brown" on YouTube |
"Golden Brown" is a song by the English rock band the Stranglers released as a 7-inch single on EMI's Liberty label in 1982, noted for its distinctive harpsichord instrumentation. It was the second single released from the band's sixth studio album La folie (1981) and peaked at No. 2 in the UK Singles Chart, the band's highest ever placing in that chart.[5] It has also been recorded by many other artists.
There is disagreement among observers as to which time signatures best represents parts of the song.[6]: 43 The main body of the song has a triple metre waltz rhythm, with beats grouped in threes, but the instrumental parts add an extra beat to create a phrase of thirteen beats.[7][8] The thirteen beats appear in the sheet music as alternating bars of 6
8 and 7
8,[9] which has also been described as three bars of 3
4 followed by one bar of 4
4.[10]: 183 [11]: 217 Sheet music of "Golden Brown" on musicnotes.com is published in B-flat minor.[9]
The music was largely written by keyboardist Dave Greenfield and drummer Jet Black, with lyrics by singer/guitarist Hugh Cornwell.[12] The basis for the tune came from an unused part of "Second Coming", a track which featured on their previous album.[6]: 43
According to bassist JJ Burnel, the song's atypical style was intended to defy expectations. He explained, "The whole thing about that song is it really represented us sticking our fingers up to our detractors".[13]
In his book The Stranglers Song by Song (2001), Hugh Cornwell states, "'Golden Brown' works on two levels. It's about heroin and also about a girl... both provided me with pleasurable times."[11]: 215
Initially, the band's label was hesitant to release the song as a single. Burnel recalled, "We had to insist on it being released. We'd been taken over by EMI and they thought we were awful – and they hated 'Golden Brown. They said: this song, you can't dance to it, you're finished".[13] The label ultimately released the song during the Christmas season, leaving it to compete with holiday songs. Burnel stated, "They thought, it's weak, it's gonna die, it's gonna drown in the tsunami of Christmas shit… but it didn't. It developed legs of its own, it became a worldwide hit".[13]
Originally featured on the group's album La folie, which was released in November 1981, and later on the US pressings of Feline (1983), "Golden Brown" was released as a single in January 1982, and was accompanied by a music video. It was a top 10 hit around the world. David Hamilton, disc jockey on the comparatively conservative BBC Radio 2, which was a middle-of-the-road (MOR) music radio station at that time, made the single his "record of the week".[1]
The single reached No. 2 in the official UK Singles Chart in February 1982, remaining there for two weeks behind double A-sided record "Town Called Malice/Precious" by the Jam.[14][15] In a 2017 interview for Dutch television station Top 2000 a gogo, Hugh Cornwell says he believes that the song would have got to Number 1 if bassist Jean-Jacques Burnel had not told the press that the song was about heroin, at which point broadcasters removed it from their playlists, prejudicing sales. "I would have waited till it got to Number 1 and then said it," he commented.[16]
In 1995, Black, Burnel and Greenfield appeared with impressionist Rory Bremner on his satirical Christmas special[17] performing a parody version of the song about future Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who was then Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer.
In a BBC Radio 2 listener poll of the nation's favourite singles to have peaked at number two, conducted in late 2012, "Golden Brown" ranked fifth behind "Vienna", "Fairytale of New York", "Sit Down" and "American Pie", and just ahead of "Waterloo Sunset" and "Penny Lane"/"Strawberry Fields Forever".[18]
In January 2014, NME ranked the song at No. 488 on its list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time".[19]
The video for "Golden Brown" was directed by Lindsey Clennell.[20] It depicts the band members both as explorers in an Arabian country in the 1920s and performers for a fictional "Radio Cairo".
In addition to the Pyramids, the video is intercut with stock footage of the Mir-i-Arab Madrasah in Bukhara, the Shah Mosque in Isfahan, the Great Sphinx, Feluccas sailing, Bedouins riding, and camel racing in the United Arab Emirates. The performance scenes were filmed in the Leighton House Museum in Holland Park, London, which was also used in the filming of the video for "Gold" by Spandau Ballet in 1983.[21]
Songs, lyrics and music by the Stranglers.
Side one[22]
Side two[22]
Side one[22]
Side two[22]
Chart (1982) | Peak position |
---|---|
Australia (Kent Music Report)[23] | 10 |
Belgium (Ultratop 50 Flanders)[22] | 7 |
France (IFOP)[24] | 73 |
Germany (Official German Charts)[25] | 63 |
Ireland (IRMA)[26] | 3 |
Netherlands (Dutch Top 40)[27] | 8 |
Netherlands (Single Top 100)[28] | 10 |
UK Singles (OCC)[14] | 2 |
Chart (1991)1 | Peak position |
---|---|
Ireland (IRMA)[26] | 25 |
UK Singles (OCC)[29] | 68 |
Remix
Chart (2013) | Peak position |
---|---|
UK Singles (OCC)[30] | 98 |
Chart (1982) | Position |
---|---|
Australia (Kent Music Report)[31] | 95 |
Region | Certification | Certified units/sales |
---|---|---|
United Kingdom (BPI)[32] | Platinum | 600,000‡ |
‡ Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone. |
In 1996 British hip hop group Kaliphz's re-working of the song reached number 22 in the UK Charts.[33] The following year, a cover version by soul singer Omar reached number 37.[34]
In 2012, Cornwell sang a Mexican-flavoured version of the song, backed by Mariachi Mexteca, later known as the Mariachis, who are expatriate Mexican musicians living in the UK. Salvador Jimenez Hernandez is the bandleader.[35]
In 2020 British YouTuber and saxophonist Laurence Mason's cover of "Golden Brown", in the style of classical American jazz pianist Dave Brubeck, was viewed over a million times, leading to a commercial release via Amazon and iTunes, and as a vinyl single under the title "Take Vibe EP".[36] The vinyl release stayed two weeks in the Official Vinyl Singles Chart's Top 40, peaking at No 24.[37]