Tag Archives: Van Morrison

Song of the Week – Brown Eyed Handsome Man, Chuck Berry; Brown Eyed Girl, Van Morrison; Good Times Bad Times, Led Zeppelin; Brown Eyed Women, Grateful Dead

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Ignored             Obscured              Restored

The use of the term “brown-eyed” as a coded or sanitized lyrical euphemism for a person of color has served as a clever way for R&B and rock artists to signal racial identity, celebrate Black beauty, or sidestep segregation-era radio censorship for decades.

One of the earliest and most famous examples is Chuck Berry’s “Brown Eyed Handsome Man,” released 70 years ago in 1956.

Written during the last gasp of the Jim Crow era, Berry employed the title phrase as a winking, multi-layered code for a brown-skinned Black man.  By framing his subject in terms of attractiveness, charisma, and resilience, Berry created an anthem of pride that celebrated Black identity while remaining accessible to mainstream audiences who might miss the song’s deeper social commentary.  The result was both subversive and commercially viable.

A decade later, Van Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Girl” carried similar implications.  The song was originally written and recorded under the title “Brown Skinned Girl,” a phrase that more directly suggested an interracial relationship.

Concerned that such an explicit reference might provoke controversy or limit radio airplay in the late 1960s, the title and key lyric were changed to the more generalized “Brown Eyed Girl.”  While Morrison later suggested that the change may have resulted from a recording mix-up, music historians have long viewed it as a practical concession to the racial sensitivities of the era.

Led Zeppelin offered another intriguing variation in “Good Times Bad Times.”

Good Times, Bad Times, you know I had my share / When my woman left home for a brown eyed man, well, I still don’t seem to care.

Rock historians and musicologists have frequently debated the song’s reference to a “brown-eyed man,” with many interpreting it as a nod to Chuck Berry’s vernacular.  Given Led Zeppelin’s deep immersion in — and frequent borrowing from — African American blues and early R&B traditions, some critics view the phrase as an intentional coded reference to a Black man.  Within the blues tradition, losing a romantic partner to an outsider or a person of another race was a recurring lyrical theme.

The Grateful Dead’s “Brown-Eyed Women,” however, occupies murkier territory.  Unlike the Berry, Morrison, and Zeppelin songs, there is little evidence that the title was intended as a racial reference.

Brown-eyed women and red grenadine / The bottle was dusty but the liquor was clean

Instead, the song unfolds as a Depression-era narrative populated by bootleg whiskey, family hardship, and fading memories.  The phrase “brown-eyed women” functions primarily as part of the song’s rich tapestry of Americana rather than as an obvious racial signifier.  Lyricist Robert Hunter was famous for writing evocative, open-ended lyrics and generally resisted providing definitive explanations for their meaning.  Neither Hunter nor Jerry Garcia ever suggested that the title carried a racial dimension.

As a result, “Brown-Eyed Women” remains an interesting outlier.  While listeners are free to interpret the song through a racial lens, there is no persuasive evidence that such an interpretation reflects Hunter’s intent.  Yet its title inevitably invites comparison with a long tradition of songs in which “brown-eyed” served as a subtle marker of race, identity, and cultural expression.

Enjoy… until next week.

Song of the Week – Autumn Song, Van Morrison

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Ignored           Obscured            Restored

Back in the early ‘70s I would scour the “cut out” bins for discounted records wherever they were sold.  If you knew what you were doing you could pick up some real bargains – often albums by great artists that were overstocked because they didn’t meet sales expectations, for whatever reason.

I distinctly remember scoring The Great Lost Kinks Album and Van Morrison’s Hard Nose the Highway, both released in 1973.  They are both excellent albums that are considered minor efforts in each artists’ catalog.

Earlier this year, MOJO magazine published an article entitled “20 Unloved Albums… and Why We Love Them.”  Hard Nose… was one of them.  The article points out that upon release the record suffered mostly negative reviews.  The most scathing may have been from Charlie Gillett.  MOJO reports Gillett criticizing Morrison for “’flabby’ lyrics, ‘boring vocal[s]’ and ‘lack of … melodic focus.’”  According to Wikipedia, Robert Christgau rated the album a B-, and Rolling Stone reviewer Dave Marsh called it “a failed sidestep, a compromise between the visionary demands of Morrison’s work and his desire for a broad-based audience” and gave it only one star.

But MOJO also pointed out that Lester Bangs wrote that it had an “entire side of songs about falling leaves.”  I’m not sure if that was meant as a compliment, but it is certainly accurate.  And that leads me to today’s SotW – “Autumn Song.”

“Autumn Song” is my favorite cut from HNtH.  The song is a 10+ minute exercise in autumnal mindfulness.  Close your eyes, clear you mind, and roll with his honied, ecstatic excursion through the simple joys of life.

Little stroll past the house on the hill
Some more coal on the fire will do well
And in a week or two it’ll be Halloween
Set the page and the stage for the scene

Little game the children will play
And as we watch them while time away
Look at me and take my breath away

You can almost see and hear the leaves falling.

Leaves of brown they fall to the ground
And it’s here, over there leaves around
Shut the door, dim the lights and relax
What is more, your desire or the facts

Pitter patter the rain falling down
Little glamor sun coming round
Take a walk when autumn comes to town

Jef Labes’ piano trills and John Platania’s guitar fills perfectly compliment the melody and sentiment of the song.  And, as usual, Van’s singing is superb.  About halfway through Van starts to riff on the lyrics in a sort of stream of consciousness that evolves into a melodic “da da, da da da, dah da-da” then back into the riffing through to the end.

The imagery is so vibrant that you might assume the song was written and recorded in New England.  But the album was recorded at a studio he had built near a home he once owned in Fairfax, California.

Hard Nose the Highway?  Unloved no more.

Enjoy… until next week.