Van Morrison Hated This 1967 Single, Even Though It Remains His Biggest Hit

In 1967, Van Morrison released “Brown Eyed Girl” as his debut single. On his freshman Blowin’ Your Mind! album, Morrison is also the sole writer of “Brown Eyed Girl”.

The feel-good song says in part, “Standing in the sunlight laughing / Hide behind a rainbow’s wall / Slipping and a-sliding / All along the waterfall / With you, my brown-eyed girl / You, my brown-eyed girl.” 

“Brown Eyed Girl” remains Morrison’s biggest hit. The multi-platinum song reached the Top 10, becoming one of the most memorable songs of the 1960s. 

So it’s surprising that Morrison says that he actually intensely dislikes “Brown Eyed Girl”, but not because of the song, per se. Instead, producer Bert Berns turned the tune into something entirely different than what Morrison envisioned.

“I never wanted to be commercial. And suddenly ‘Brown Eyed Girl’ was making me even more commercial,” Morrison says.

Morrison may not have liked the commercial success, but its success is hard to dispute. In 2011, “Brown Eyed Girl” was certified for being played on the radio 10 million times. It is his only multi-platinum single.

The Controversy Behind “Brown Eyed Girl” by Van Morrison

“Brown Eyed Girl” might have been a big hit, but it also caused quite a bit of controversy. The original version of “Brown Eyed Girl” was actually “Brown Skinned Girl”, a song about an interracial couple. Morrison changed it to “Brown Eyed Girl” so more radio stations would play it.

Still, the song didn’t get as much airplay as some other songs, due to one of the lines in the song, which was considered quite suggestive at the time. Part of the song says, “Cast my memory back there, Lord / Sometime I’m overcome thinking about / Making love in the green grass / Behind the stadium.”

Part of an earlier verse, “”Laughin’ and a-runnin‚” was overdubbed, so more radio stations would play “Brown Eyed Girl”.

Although “Brown Eyed Girl” remains his most popular, Morrison says the song pales in comparison to some of his later songs.

“It’s not one of my best,” Morrison claims. “I mean, I’ve got about 300 songs that I think are better.” Morrison also says that, due to his contract with his record company at the time, Bang Records, owned by Berns, he never received any royalties from “Brown Eyed Girl”.

After “Brown Eyed Girl”, Morrison only had one more Top 10 single with “Domino”, out in 1970.

Photo by PoPsie Randolph/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images