Brandy (You're A Fine Girl) by Looking Glass

Brandy (You're A Fine Girl)

1972

Looking Glass

I'm posting a pair of biggies this week. Two songs that both had the same name when they were originally recorded. They came out about three years apart...the first one was all but a one hit wonder and the second one kicked off a long string of hit singles for a legendary performer. Did I mention that the one word titles to the songs rhymed? (Am I kinda sounding Like Casey Kasum here or what, LOL)

The intro of the first song's familiar to anyone who grew up in The Seventies...when that Fender-Rhodes electric piano cranked up with that awesome upbeat tempo, ya knew you were getting ready to hear a quartet of Rutgers University kids who called themselves 'Looking Glass' belt out the story of a popular barmaid in a 'Port on a Western Bay' who was waiting fruitlessly for the man she loved to return from the sea.

'Looking Glass' was the literal story of a local garage band that played at frat parties and local hangouts hitting it big. They decided to get serious about their music after graduation, and cut a demo tape. 'Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)' was one of their original songs, and was named...sort of...after lead singer Elliott Lurie's high school sweetheart, who was named 'Randi'. The recording session for Brandy was one of those long frustrating ones where the artist, producer, and entire crew wonders if they're ever gonna get this thing sounding like they want it to and ultimately wonders if they're ever gonna get out of the studio at all...but they finally got it right. They farmed the Demo tape out Annnnnd...they got rejection letters...a pretty extensive collection of them, in fact.

They ultimately came to the attention of recording industry Legend and Uber Guru Clive Davis, who went to a club in New York to hear them play. Clive Davis liked what he saw and heard, and signed them to his label Columbia subsidiary Epic Records. Legend has it that Brandy...' was released ' as the B side of 'Don't It Make You Feel Good', the song he thought was going to be a hit. A Washington DC DJ named Harv Moore liked 'Brandy...' better, flipped it, played it, and it took off...first in the D.C.Area, then Virginia and Maryland, then nationwide. Those of us who lived in Virginia were among the first to hear it, well before the rest of the country, though we didn't know that at the time, Or care for that matter...we just knew we really liked what we heard. We apparently weren't the only ones who liked it...the song was released in May of 1972 and and though sales of 45's started slowly, it hit the Number One spot on the Billboard Hot 100 on the week of August 26^th, staying there for a single week.

ANother interesting little tidbit...the song also inspired thousands of 70s mommas-to-be to name an equally huge number of 70s girl-babies 'Brandy' or an alternate spelling there-of, because the name 'Brandy, in all of it's different spellings, skyrocketed in popularity after the song took off and topped the charts.

The song may have been actually been based, at least partially, in historical fact. In 1813 a woman in New Jersey who was desperately in love with a sea captain who vowed that he would return from the sea and marry her bought a plot of land on a bend in The Raritan River. She did this so she could follow her pledge to wait at that bend for his return...but he never came back. She was buried there in 1827 and her grave still remains. Many think her story is the inspiration for the song.

Looking Glass only had one other song that was a mild hit, that hit being 'Jimmy Loves Marrianne' Elliott Lurie left the band shortly thereafter and was replaced...but we all know what happens when you try to replace the Lead Singer of a band...often it's doesn't go well. One thing that ate into their success in a big way both before and after Elliott Lurie's departure was the gap between 'Brandi...''s sound and their live sound...Brandi was not typical of their sound. Looking Glass was more of a hard rock band by far, and fans coming to concerts expecting Brandy's uptempo pop sound were sorely disappointed.

The band folded shortly after Lurie left, Elliott Lurie didn't find solo success so he went behind the scenes to produce music for movies and television (And made a pretty decent career of it). And we were left with a mega hit that's become a timeless symbol of 70s Pop Music.

So Enjoy (And I know ya sang along to this one...right from the very first note!)

Brandy (You're A Fine Girl) by Looking Glass.

Same arrangement, but with Lyrics

And as a bonus...The follow up to 'Brandy (You're A Fine Girl, and Looking Glass' only other hit, Jimmy Loves Maryanne

Brandy (You're A Fine Girl)'s Songfacts page: http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=3430

And the song's SuperSeventies page: http://www.superseventies.com/1972_9singles.html