Golden Brown

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“Golden Brown”
“Golden Brown” cover
Single by The Stranglers
B-side "Love 30"
Released January 1982
Format 7" vinyl
Recorded 1981
Length 3:27
Label Liberty
BP 407 (UK, 7")
Producer The Stranglers
Steve Churchyard
The Stranglers singles chronology
"Let Me Introduce You To The Family"
(1981)		 "Golden Brown"
(1982)		 "La Folie"
(1982)
La Folie track listing
  1. "Non Stop Nun"
  2. "Everybody Loves You When You're Dead"
  3. "Tramp"
  4. "Let Me Introduce You To The Family"
  5. "Ain't Nothin' To It"
  6. "The Man They Love To Hate"
  7. "Pin Up"
  8. "It Only Takes Two To Tango"
  9. "Golden Brown"
  10. "How To Find True Love And Happiness In The Present Day"
  11. "La Folie"

"Golden Brown" is a song by the English rock band The Stranglers. It was released as a 7" single in January 1982, on Liberty.

Contents

[edit] Overview

Originally featured on the group's album La Folie, which was released in November 1981, and later on some pressings of Feline, "Golden Brown" was released as a single in late 1981, and was accompanied by a video. It reached #2 in the official UK singles chart in February 1982, behind "Town Called Malice" by The Jam.

The comparatively conservative BBC Radio Two, at that time a middle-of-the-road (MOR) music radio station, decided to make the record the single of the week, a surprising step considering the band was almost as notorious as Sex Pistols only a few short years before. The fourth line of the song, "With my mind she runs," is a common source of mondegreens.[1]. The band claimed that the song's lyrics were akin to an aural Rorschach test and that people only heard in it what they wanted to hear, although this did not prevent persistent allegations that the lyrics alluded to the narcotic heroin (although in an interview with Channel 4, Drummer Jet Black quipped it was a song about Marmite).

The single was a hit around the world, scaling the Top 10 as far away as Australia. Its commercial success was probably the single factor that secured The Stranglers their continuing life in pop mainstream for the remainder of the 1980s.

[edit] Song meaning

There has been much controversy surrounding the lyrics. In his 2001 book The Stranglers Song By Song, Hugh Cornwell clearly states "'Golden Brown' works on two levels. It's about heroin and also about a girl". Essentially the lyrics describe how "both provided me with pleasurable times." [2]

[edit] Musical composition

The song is a waltzing, harpsichord-led ballad in a 3/4 time signature with a 4/4 measure after 3 3/4 measures in the instrumental bridges.

The music was largely written by keyboardist Dave Greenfield, with lyrics by Hugh Cornwell.

[edit] Music video

Two shots from Golden Brown: the band performing the song in Leighton House with Baroque instruments, and as explorers.
Two shots from Golden Brown: the band performing the song in Leighton House with Baroque instruments, and as explorers.

The video for "Golden Brown" depicts the group both as explorers in an Arabic country (images of the Pyramids in the sequence allude to the Giza area of Egypt) in the 1920s and performers for a fictional "Radio Cairo". In addition to the Pyramids the video is intercut with stock footage of a madrassa in Uzbekistan, and Great Sphinx, dhows sailing, and Bedouins riding and camel racing in the United Arab Emirates. The performance scenes were filmed in the Leighton House Museum in Holland Park, London.

[edit] Media appearances

  • "Golden Brown" is featured on the soundtracks of the 2001 movie He Died With A Felafel In His Hand, and the 2000 movie Snatch.
  • In the 2005 version of the video game NARC the song is used along with several other songs presumably about drug use.
  • Newsnight and other British television programs have frequently used the song as background music for footage of Gordon Brown.
  • Featured in BBC's Ashes to Ashes - Episode 6, March 2008.

[edit] Cover versions

  • In 1997, Soul singer Omar revived the song and took it back into the UK Top 40.
  • In 2006, English jazz singer-songwriter Symeon Cosburn covered the song on his album Breakfast With The Blues, which was later re-mixed into a pop/chillout version by The Groove Foundry and added as a bonus track on the album.
  • In 2007, English pop singer Jamelia sampled the song for her single "No More".

[edit] Track listing

Songs, lyrics, and music by The Stranglers.

  • 7" (BP 407)
  1. "Golden Brown" – 3:28
  2. "Love 30" – 3:57

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ "Golden Brown" at amiright.com
  2. ^ The Stranglers Song By Song, Hugh Cornwell and Jim Drury. Sanctuary Publishing Ltd. 2001

[edit] External links