Who knew that Brandy, the hit single from Looking Glass, is based on a real live girl! But before I get all excited imagining a feathered haired bar wench pining for a man at sea, lyricist Elliot Lurie has said that though a girl with a name similar to Brandy does exist, the story is made up.
She must have just been a real nice girl, the kind you want to marry, but maybe Lurie just couldn't quite bring himself to the altar since he was living the life of an early 1970s rock star–a lifestyle he probably equated to high adventure on the open seas.
I still see Brandy with blonde feathered hair, just like the makeup wearing, scarily slutty older sister of my own sister's childhood friend who used to steal boxes of wine from her swinger parents' fridge. Brandy–what a name–reached the peak of its popularity right after this song was released. Since then, it's been sliding: 81 million Brandys were born in the '70s; 719,00 in 2005 (according to the Baby Name Voyager).
In the song Brandy, a fine girl, is a barmaid to a bunch of sailors, all who know and praise her fineness but, alas, they tell her “my love, my wife, and my lady is the sea”. I really bonded over this song with a G in short shorts one night at the Phoenix, I hope you can still find it on the jukebox next time you're there.
But what do you think?