Driving down the 405, I hear Brown Eyed Girl twice on two different radio stations. Here’s the history behind the song if you don’t already know it… It’s 1967. The Supreme Court rules in favor of Mildred Jeter and Richard Loving (pictured). The historic decision strikes down all previous U.S. laws that made it illegal for different ethnic groups to marry each other. That same year, Van Morrison releases a song originally titled Brown Skinned Girl about a clandestine love that includes Morrison “hiding behind a rainbow’s wall” with a brown-skinned woman. The love affair in the song remains secret. The two part ways. Van sings that he sees the girl years later and thinks about their past: “Sometimes I’m overcome just thinking about it. Making love in the green grass, behind the stadium with you. My brown-skinned girl. You’re my … brown-skinned girl.” A wee bit too racy for the 1967 radio-listening crowd, the record label puts the heat on Morrison. He eventually re-records the song and it’s released with the title Brown *Eyed* Girl. In 1975, Morrison admitted that the original title was indeed Brown Skinned Girl, but for whatever reason (read: his probable reluctance to bite the hand that was feeding him — at the time, the song was arguably his biggest hit), he claimed that he “spaced out” and accidentally changed the title without noticing it. A mere oversight on his part. Um, yeeeah. Right.
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Now we just get the hairy eyeball from folks who wish we’d stick to our “own kind.” There are parts of the country I won’t venture into at all. Case in point, Jasper,TX.
this girl says:
there is just *too* much yumminess all across the cultural rainbow to deny yourself … why would you? how COULD you?
_
It probably wouldn’t of mattered if it happened in Van Morrison’s native Belfast in the 60′s it would of come down to whether she was Catholic or Protestant than skin colour.
Phil Lynott (Thin Lizzy frontman), Paul McGrath (80′s soccer player) and Samantha Mumba (popsinger) are Irish.
Great song. Didn’t know the lyrics had been fiddled with.
I never knew that…those for schooling a chick :-)
raymond: The south sucks.
miss anon: I know. I need to learn more languages so that I can because a more global lovin’ woman. ;)
pete: It’s a crazy world indeed and it seems that people can find almost any reason to hate each other.
johnjenright: Yep. Fiddled with. Fooled with. And, all other sorts of tomfoolery-ed with. :)
berry: Just doing my part to spread random music trivia to the masses.
yes, you are my inspiration for this particular purchase on iTunes!
I dunno if you’ve ever heard of Matt Nathanson before… if not GET ON IT!! but i’m sure you have.. he’s a cutie! His song “Still” has the lyric “Still can feel you kiss me love,love. Still can feel your brown skin shine, shine.” Now he may be talking about a tanned young lady OR (this is what i choose to believe) he is talkign about a beautiful black girl! yay! Either way he singing about brown-skin! yippee!
Found your blog on Yahoo
This makes me think of the poet Natasha Tretheway — a poet born in 1966 in Mississippi to a black mother and white father. Her book Native Guard is a great exploration of miscegenation laws in the South (and the poems are incredible):
Flounder
by Natasha Trethewey
Here, she said, put this on your head.
She handed me a hat.
you ’bout as white as your dad,
and you gone stay like that.
Aunt Sugar rolled her nylons down
around each bony ankle,
and I rolled down my white knee socks
letting my thin legs dangle,
circling them just above water
and silver backs of minnows
flitting here then there between
the sun spots and the shadows.
This is how you hold the pole
to cast the line out straight.
Now put that worm on your hook,
throw it out and wait.
She sat spitting tobacco juice
into a coffee cup.
Hunkered down when she felt the bite,
jerked the pole straight up
reeling and tugging hard at the fish
that wriggled and tried to fight back.
A flounder, she said, and you can tell
’cause one of its sides is black.
The other is white, she said.
It landed with a thump.
I stood there watching that fish flip-flop,
switch sides with every jump.
This page seems to recieve a great deal of visitors. How do you promote it? It gives a nice individual twist on things. I guess having something useful or substantial to say is the most important factor.
I feel like you could probably teach a class on how to make a great blog. This is fantastic! I have to say, what really got me was your design. You certainly know how to make your blog more than just a rant about an issue. Youve made it possible for people to connect. Good for you, because not that many people know what theyre doing.
I’ve always liked “Brown-Eyed Girl”, and come to like Van Morrison’s music over the years, so it’s tripped out to learn that it was “Brown-Skinned Girl” originally! Plus I like your site, MS. Hines, and it took me a minute to get used to your open-ness about sex—I couldn’t do that online too much—that does take a level of comfort within yourself that everyone has to learn to get to–but, hey, us women get just as horny and want sex just as much as the guys do—I’m over 30, and I’m very cool with that! Good luck with the show!