Golden Brown
| Golden Brown | |
|---|---|
| The Stranglers | |
| publication | January 10, 1982 |
| length | 3:30 |
| Genre (s) | Pop , new wave |
| Author (s) | The Stranglers ( Jet Black , Jean-Jacques Burnel , Hugh Cornwell , Dave Greenfield) |
| Label | Liberty Records |
| album | La folie |
Golden Brown is a ballad by the British rock band The Stranglers . It was created in 1981 and is their most successful single to date. Due to the allusion in the title and text to a common scene metaphor for heroin , the piece is often understood as a drug song ; the band confirmed this interpretation early on. As a well-known, exemplary piece of the punk and early New Wave era, Golden Brown was covered and re-recorded in different versions despite its unusual musical form.
history
Golden Brown owes its creation to a spontaneous, situational decision. Similar to other commercially successful bands in the early British punk scene , the Stranglers, founded in 1974, were in a phase of reorientation in the early 1980s. As one of the well-known formations of British punk, they made a name for themselves with powerful, fast, raw-energetic songs such as No more Heroes , Peaches , Hangin 'around and Nize' n 'Sleazy . In the early 1980s, the punk music scene also opened up more and more to the New Wave. After the - commercially unsuccessful - concept album The Gospel According to the Meninblack , the group worked on the successor, La Folie . The melody of Golden Brown had accompanied the Stranglers as sound snippets for around a year and a half. Originally it was an outro idea brought in by keyboardist Dave Greenfield , which the band had already tried several times to fit into one piece, including in Second Coming from the Meninblack album. Drummer Jet Black occasionally wrote the later stanza music to Greenfield's melody. The band rejected the idea several times. It wasn't until a year later - according to band guitarist and singer Hugh Cornwell - that the melody spoke to him. Cornwell looking back: “And suddenly I heard this melody very differently. It didn't fit into any song - that was a song of its own. Dave was very happy when he heard this. He had tried to make something of his idea for eighteen months, and then we had the song finished in just ten minutes. "
The musical peculiarity of Golden Brown is the use of a harpsichord as the melody part, the change between 6/8 and 7/8 time as well as the stanza form laid out for 13 bars . The jazzy groove came from Jet Black, who had previously worked as a musician in jazz performances, among other things . The text contributed by Cornwell was ambiguous. He sketched a scenario of perfect harmony and did not skimp on strong, emotionally charged images: “ Golden Brown shines like the sun. Takes me in, robs me of my mind, gets me through the night. Don't doubt, just let it happen. ”Since Golden Brown - like Brown Sugar - was a common metaphor for heroin, many understood the piece as a drug song - in this specific case: as a description of the effects of heroin. The lyricist Cornwell never resisted this interpretation and repeatedly confirmed that his own heroin addiction formed the background of the text, but on various occasions (including in his 2001 book The Stranglers Song By Song ) stated that the piece could also be played at the same time understand it as a love song and as an ode to his girlfriend at the time, whose skin color was golden brown.
Bassist Jean-Jacques Burnel was not taken with Golden Brown , but since he was alone in this position within the band, the piece was included in the list of songs for the 1981 album La folie . Initially only intended as an album track, Jet Black campaigned for Golden Brown to be released as a single . It was released almost at the same time as the album at the end of 1981. B-side was the title Love 30 - not included on La folie . In the Federal Republic of Germany , where it was the band's first hit, the song reached number 63 in the charts , while in Great Britain the song reached number two, the highest single placement of a Stranglers song. The single was accompanied by a video clip. Made under the direction of Lindsey Clennell, it showed the band in front of an Egyptian backdrop, as a salon music combo in a grand hotel and as a pyramid explorer .
In retrospect, Golden Brown proved to be the Stranglers' greatest commercial success. In the punk scene, the group's success was controversial. Parts of her sharply criticized the group's stylistic change and commercial success. Hugh Cornwell, however, had no problem with that. Looking back, on the occasion of a radio feature , he said : “The greatest rock songs were all very popular , what's the problem? You should make music that you feel yourself. But you also have to write songs for the people who will hear you. For me that was also one of the reasons why punk was successful. ”In addition, the chart successes of earlier Stranglers pieces laid the foundation for him to continue as a singer and show actor. Communication is ultimately the decisive key in the music business. Cornwell: “If you only make music for yourself and no one else likes it, then you don't communicate.” Although Cornwell as a band guitarist was not able to master the technically demanding guitar solo part in Golden Brown for a long time and did it for the first time on the occasion played at the Roundhouse Gala in London , the piece is an integral part of his solo appearances.
Cover versions
As a well-known piece of British punk and early New Wave, Golden Brown can now look back on a number of different cover versions and variations. A first known version was released in 1996 by the British hip-hop band Kaliphz (appearing on the single in question as Kaleef , an allusion to the commonality of the original video and the band members' Arab origin). The voice of Hugh Cornwell was mixed. Unlike the Stranglers version, the Kaliphz version is clearly about drugs . In a SWR radio feature on Golden Brown , the hip-hop formation emphasized in retrospect that, unlike the original song variant, it was about showing in an unbiased way what happens when you take drugs. Kaliphz: “(...) We don't patronize people like that. You can't tell poor people anyway: Don't take drugs! They have nothing else in life. "
The song Back from the 1994 debut album by Kinderzimmer Productions originally also contained a sample of the song, which was removed under pressure from the Stranglers' record company. Oasis used the rhythm of Golden Brown on their song Part of the Queue (on the album Don't Believe the Truth ) as a clearly recognizable influence, while Jamelia again used Golden Brown samples on their single No More (2007) . In the style of electronic music or in a trance -rehearsed -Sound versions come from Better Daze and that of the island of Mauritius dating world musician Mo Kolours (Title: Texture like Sun). The Australian combo Rhydian and The Residuals adapted the melody and lyrics for a jazz-like cover version, the Brazilian singer Marcela Mangabeira for a bossa nova version. A German-language version played 2012 from the TV show Dittsche known television presenter , a graphic designer and singer-songwriter Jon Flemming Olsen , a (dawn), an a cappella variant of Munich Don Camillo Choir. Other cover versions come from the British fun folk band The Wurzels and Liset Alea , lead singer of the French Nouvelle Chanson formation Nouvelle Vague . Hugh Cornwell himself finally played an acoustic version in 2012 together with the mariachi combo Mariachi Mexteca.
A well-known pop melody from the early 1980s, Golden Brown was also used as a recognizable theme in films , TV series, and video games. The song Wind by Akeboshi , made famous by the Japanese anime series Naruto , is largely based on the melody of Golden Brown . The music was also used for the soundtrack of the films Snatch - Pigs and Diamonds and He Died with a Felafel in His Hand . She was also frequently used music bed in the WDR-2 telecast hit rally in the 1980s.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b David Buckley: No Mercy. The Authorized and Uncensored Biography . Hodder & Stoughton, London 1997, ISBN 0-340-68062-8 , pp. 183 .
- ↑ a b c d e SWR3.de: Golden Brown - The Stranglers. Retrieved June 19, 2020 . (Podcast, 5:44 min)
- ↑ sheet of music
- ↑ a b The Stranglers: Golden Brown. Song Review , allmusic.com, accessed February 16, 2016
- ↑ Band biography on kinderzimmer-productions.de
- ↑ Variations 204: Golden Brown , Andreas Kriz, cultural broadcasting archive, October 28, 2015
literature
- Hugh Cornwell, Jim Drury: The Stranglers Song By Song. Sanctuary Publishing Ltd., 2001, ISBN 1860743625 .