Golden Brown
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| "Golden Brown" | ||
|---|---|---|
| Single by The Stranglers | ||
| From the album La Folie | ||
| Single Released | January 1982 | |
| Single Format | vinyl record (7") | |
| Recorded | ??? | |
| Genre | ??? | |
| Song Length | 3:32 | |
| Record label | Liberty Records | |
| Producer | ??? | |
| Chart positions | 2 (UK) | |
| The Stranglers single chronology | ||
| "Who Wants the World" 1980 | "Golden Brown" 1982 | "Strange Little Girl" 1982 |
"Golden Brown" was a waltzing ballad in a 6/8 time signature from The Stranglers. (The instrumental bridges add an extra beat in every other measure, effectively producing a 13/8 time signature), with the 7 inch record featuring B-side "Love 30".
It was an unexpected hit in early 1982 when it reached number two in the official UK singles chart. It is interesting to note that the song was not the first choice of single from the album La Folie released the previous year.
The highly conservative Radio Two, at that time an MOR station with an audience mainly comprised of housewives up and down the UK, decided to make the record the single of the week, an apparently unlikely step considering the band was almost as notorious as The Sex Pistols only a few short years before.
The management at Radio Two also failed to notice that the song was actually all about the drug heroin, although the band always claimed the song to be an aural Rorschach test and that people only heard in it what they wanted to hear. The success of this song commercially is probably the single factor that secured The Stranglers their continuing life in pop mainstream for the remainder of the 1980s.
However, even as of 2004, the Irish Today FM radio station will always play this track as a substitute to The Stranglers track "Skin Deep", which is more obviously about heroin usage. This is done for requests and even in retro chart rundowns.
This song is also on the soundtrack of the movie Snatch.