A Pair of Brown Eyes

"A Pair of Brown Eyes"
Single by The Pogues
from the album Rum Sodomy & the Lash
Released 1985
Genre Celtic punk
Length 4:54
Writer(s) Shane MacGowan
The Pogues singles chronology
"Boys from the County Hell"
(1984)
"A Pair of Brown Eyes"
(1985)
"Sally MacLennane"
(1985)

"A Pair of Brown Eyes" is a single by The Pogues, their first to make the UK Top 100, peaking at Number 71. It featured on the band's second album, Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash, and was composed by Pogues front man Shane MacGowan, on the melody of "Wild Mountain Thyme", also known as "Will Ye Go Lassie Go," a song by Francis McPeake in a traditional Irish folk style.

Music video

The music video for "A Pair of Brown Eyes" was directed in 1985 by Alex Cox and was set in a Nineteen Eighty-Four-esque Britain with Margaret Thatcher in the place of Big Brother as a supreme, god-like authoritarian figure. The video featured roles played by band members as well as a cameo by Elvis Costello.