G major · Camelot 9B · 76 BPM
Brown Eyed Girl
by Van Morrison
- 76
- BPM
- G major
- Key
- 9B
- Camelot
- 50
- Danceability
- 19
- Acousticness
Hugh McCracken and Al Gorgoni played the two guitar parts on "Brown Eyed Girl", the single Van Morrison cut at A & R Studios in New York City. Producer Bert Berns, who had worked with Morrison's former band Them, assembled the session players: the two guitarists, bassist Russ Savakus, organist Garry Sherman, and Gary Chester on drums. The Sweet Inspirations sang back-up vocals. Morrison recorded the track on the first day of a two-day session that began on 28 March 1967, capturing it on the 22nd take.
The song, written by Morrison, was released in mid-June 1967 on the Bang label and peaked at No. 10 on the Billboard Hot 100, spending sixteen weeks on the chart. It had originally been titled "Brown-Skinned Girl", a change Morrison later described as a mistake, calling it a kind of Jamaican calypso song whose title slipped his mind. He only noticed the alteration after seeing the tape box. Some lyrics were considered too suggestive for radio at the time, and an edit replaced "making love in the green grass" with words from an earlier verse.
Morrison recorded eight songs at the March session, intended for four singles. Berns capitalised on the single's success by assembling the album Blowin' Your Mind! without Morrison's input, releasing it that September with the song as its lead-off track. Because of the contract Morrison signed with Bang without legal advice, he has stated he never received royalties for the song.
Brown Eyed Girl runs at 76 BPM, the tempo of soul, trip-hop and half-time hip-hop. In classical terms it sits in andante territory. A bar of 4/4 lasts 3.16 seconds, and a quarter-note delay is 789 ms. It is in G major, Camelot 9B, which shares its notes with E minor and mixes cleanly with C major and D major.
We use multiple sources as part of our online research for the song story including Wikipedia.