The story behind 'Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)'

boing
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Originally published at: http://boingboing.net/2017/08/12/the-story-behind-brandy-you.html

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“Now considered a classic and one of the best songs ever written…”

WTF? No it isn’t. Not even remotely. I cannot imagine the amount of brain altering substances a person would have to take to be able to write that sentence.

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In the way back, the ole century, Looking Glass played up and down the Jersey Shore. Was like a $1 cover charge, those were the days.

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Linus Torvalds HATES that song. I don’t blame him.

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Yeah well you WOULD say that wouldn’t you? I suppose you think this is better?

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Yeah, but Linus hates a lot of stuff. I don’t give it much weight.

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Hello, Rusty.

Could you, perhaps, cite the source for “one of the best songs ever written”? (I find that sort of knowledge to be a good substitute for rubbernecking at traffic accidents.)

Thank you!

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Best or not, it was pretty popular. 1972 seemed to be a good year for classics.

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That might be because you forget the terrible songs after a while.

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This nonsense probably originates from the “possibly Earth’s finest composition” line from the Kurt Russell father figure in GotG 2. I expect better from Boing Boing.

See this New York Post article for more info and a denial by the Looking Glass singer/songwriter:

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Guardians-of-the-Galaxy-Vol-2-trailer-breakdown-70.jpg1920×797 108 KB

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I figured they were just highlighting that Kurt Russell was a bad guy, nobody that powerful and with musical tastes that bad could possibly be any good.

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I’m not sure they were commenting on his bad taste, i think they were showing that him liking an inherently misogynistic song should immediately raise a red flag at that point in the film that his character is not to be trusted and how it’s subsequently revealed that he used peter’s mother for his own sinister purpose.

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I mean it’s cute and catchy but “one of the best songs ever written”? Yeah, um, no.

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Anybody else find it temporally disconcerting that Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson both had hits in the top 100 in 1972?

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Class of '72 here, and we quite happily danced to this song at our homecoming dance. In fact, this group was in the running to be our Junior-Senior prom band until the teacher in charge decided they looked possibly ‘controversial’ (none of us ever figured that out).

Anyway, this song brings back a lot of good memories for both my husband and me (high school sweethearts, going strong after 45 years together). But “our song” was Chicago’s Colour My World. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UOP6l82vU0

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i adore this song, but there’s no way it’s one of the best songs ever written. period.

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Alright, I guess this plate of beans isn’t going to overthink itself.

First off, these are sailors who spend their time in a bar all the time when they are not at sea. That’s pretty weird. To understand any work of the literary imagination we must refer to previous works, and by doing so we immediately realize what kinds of sailors these are - that’s right: PIRATES!

Are there any other types of people who spend all their time in a bar? That’s right again: ALCOHOLICS!

So what these alcoholic pirates are trying to tell us is that alcoholism - as fine as it is - cannot compare to what one does at sea, which is piracy. Which is as it should be, alcoholism is a syndrome, a disease - but piracy is a calling.

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“Still considered crap and a very extremely annoying song” FTFY

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A sixpack of beer should do the trick.