One Hit Wonders #23: “Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl)” by Looking Glass (Epic Records 1972)

You couldn’t go into any bar, pub, or tavern in my fishing port hometown of New Bedford, MA for literally decades without someone playing Looking Glass’s #1 hit from 1972, “Brandy (You’re A Fine Girl)” on the jukebox – usually more than once a night!:

(And yes, that’s future country legend Kenny Rogers doing the introduction!)

The song/story of a barmaid in love with a sailor she can never truly have, because as he says “my life, my lover, my lady, is the sea” resonated with us locals, as I’m sure it did in every “harbor town” where barmaids work “layin’ whiskey down” to hard working seafaring men (not to mention that fact that it made a helluva great slow-dancing tune as closing time neared – ah, those were the days, my friends!).

The band Looking Glass was from New Brunswick, New Jersey, and consisted of Elliot Lurie (lead singer, guitar), Larry Gronsky (keyboards), Pieter Sweval (bass), and Jeff Grob (drums). While “Brandy” was a smashing success, their self-titled debut album only made it to #113 on the Billboard LP charts. A follow-up LP, SUBAWAY SERANADE, did worse, though it did yield a minor hit in “Jimmy Loves Mary-Anne”, which crawled up to #33. After Lurie left the group disbanded, with Sweval and Grob forming the late 70’s glam-metal band Starz, who had some small success in 1977 with “Cherry Baby”:

Elliot Lurie, who wrote “Brandy”, had a brief solo career before moving to Hollywood and becoming a music supervisor for both films (THE SURE THING, ADVENTURES OF FORD FAIRLANE, ALIEN 3, A NIGHT AT THE ROXBURY, SPANGLISH) and television (CLUELESS, NASH BRIDGES, LIZZIE MCGUIRE, THE 4400). But for most of us, he’ll be forever immortalized as the man who gave voice to a girl who “wears a braided chain, made of finest silver from the North of Spain”, and who, “at night, when the bars close down,..walks through a silent town, and loves a man who’s not around”….