"Golden Brown" | |||||||||||
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Single by The Stranglers | |||||||||||
from the album La folie | |||||||||||
B-side | "Love 30" | ||||||||||
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Format | 7" vinyl | ||||||||||
Recorded | 1981 | ||||||||||
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Length | 3:30 | ||||||||||
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The Stranglers singles chronology | |||||||||||
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"Golden Brown" is a song by the English rock band the Stranglers. It was released as a 7" single in December 1981 in the United States and in January 1982 in the United Kingdom, on Liberty. It was the second single released from the band's sixth album La Folie. It peaked at No. 2 in the UK Singles Chart, the band's highest ever placing in that chart.
In January 2014, NME ranked the song as No. 488 on its list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. It has also been recorded by many other artists.
Originally featured on the group's album La folie, which was released in November 1981, and later on the USA pressings of Feline, "Golden Brown" was released as a single in December 1981, and was accompanied by a video. It reached No. 2 in the official UK Singles Chart in February 1982, behind double A-sided record "Town Called Malice/Precious" by the Jam.
The comparatively conservative BBC Radio 2, at that time a middle-of-the-road (MOR) music radio station, decided to make the record the single of the week, a surprising step considering the band were almost as notorious as Sex Pistols only a few years before.
The band claimed that the song's lyrics were akin to an aural Rorschach test and that people only heard in it what they wanted to hear, although this did not prevent persistent allegations that the lyrics alluded to heroin (although in an interview with Channel 4, drummer Jet Black quipped it was a song about Marmite).
The single was a top 10 hit around the world, including Australia. It was also featured in the films Snatch and He Died with a Felafel in His Hand, and is included on both soundtrack albums.