Brandy, You're A Fine Girl by levipatrick

levipatrick - Brandy, You're A Fine Girl

levipatrick

Jul 08, 2025 05:16pm

<img src="https://www.songfacts.com/img-artalbums-145-289ad402023bcea930894a6f8124a9b0.png"> Album: Looking Glass (<a href="https://www.songfacts.com/browse/years/1972" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank" style="color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">1972</a>) The four members of Looking Glass are alumni of Rutgers University, and the Spring 2009 Rutgers alumni magazine carried an article about this song and the band itself. The pertinent part reads: "The band recorded the song seven times before they got it right. 'Brandy' - based on the name of (lead singer) Elliot Lurie's high school sweetheart 'Randy' - tells the story of a musician torn between his love for a life at sea and his love for a barmaid. Released as the B-side of 'Don't It Make You Feel Good,' the song was overlooked, as was the A-side, for that matter, until Harv Moore, a Washington DC disc jockey took it up as a personal cause. After years of playing covers and their originals at frat parties and bars in the New Brunswick area, Looking Glass was signed to Epic Records by the legendary Clive Davis. The band, appearing on Dick Clark's American Bandstand and at Carnegie Hall, never came close to matching 'Brandy's' success. And by 1973, Lurie had left for a solo career. He was replaced, but the band soon fell apart. In 1995, Looking Glass reunited to perform 'Brandy' and 'Jimmie loves Mary-Anne' at a Madison Square Garden concert. in 2000, 'Brandy' was part of the soundtrack for the film Charlie's Angels, for which band members and Peter Sweval's estate each received a royalty check of $30K (Sweval died of AIDS in 1992). The members of the band also receive the modest sum of $4K each year for the general use of the song. Says former drummer Jeff Grob, wistfully: 'If only liquor commercials were allowed on TV.