Music Monday: Golden Brown

Oops–so I accidentally posted this a day early. Oh well. It’s Monday in South Korea and Australia… 🙂

“Golden Brown” is a song by The Stranglers that got to number 2 on the British charts in 1982. With a name like “The Stranglers” you might expect some kind of punk band, and, well, you’d be right. At least the origins of the band lie in the punk scene of the late 1970s. Perhaps a little more musical than your average guitar-thrashing, vocal-cord-abusing purveyors of anarchy and mayhem, their style was still very much not gentle and easy-listening.

That’s certainly the impression I had of The Stranglers in 1982. Songs like “No More Heroes” and “Something Better Change” were the kinds of things I expected of them. So it’s no wonder I, and many others, did a double-take when we first heard “Golden Brown.” Talk about a total change of direction! It’s predominantly a keyboard song–a harpsichord, no less, with some organ highlights. The guitar solo is clean, no distortion. And the vocal is smooth and easy, nothing strained or shouty. It ended up being a favorite of mine at the time, and I still enjoy it to this day.

The recording is pitched somewhere between B-minor and Bb-minor, possibly due to the harpsichord tuning. From online videos, it looks as if they actually played it in Bb-minor, so that’s the key I’ve used for the following lead sheet and music.

There are four sections of chord patterns that are repeated throughout the song. Here’s the harpsichord part, as far as I can figure it out, for each section (marked A, B, C, and D on the music):

Here’s the lead sheet (click to enlarge):

And if you click HERE, you can download a pdf of both the music and lead sheet.

Here’s the song. I’ve dropped the pitch down to Bb-minor so you can play along if you wish. There is a music video for “Golden Brown,” but it seems whenever anyone posts it to YouTube it gets taken down. If you hunt around online you might be able to find it: