Welcome to Music Friday when we spotlight songs with jewelry, gemstones or precious metals in the lyrics or title. Today, we revisit one of the greatest narrative songs of the 1970s — “Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl)” by the Looking Glass. The 1972 chart-topper is packed with evocative imagery, lyrical storytelling and, most importantly for us, jewelry symbolism that turns a simple silver locket into the emotional centerpiece of the song.
Frontman and songwriter Elliot Lurie sings, “Brandy wears a braided chain / Made of finest silver from the North of Spain / A locket that bears the name / Of the man that Brandy loved.”
Those four lines alone make “Brandy” a Music Friday classic. The braided chain, the Spanish silver, the engraved locket — all serve as tangible reminders of a sailor who stole Brandy’s heart, even though the sea ultimately claimed his.
For years, fans debated whether “Brandy” might be rooted in real history. A popular theory tied the song to the legend of Mary Ellis, an 18th-century New Jersey woman who famously fell in love with a sea captain. Sadly for Ellis, the captain never returned because his “life, lover and lady” was the sea. The coincidence that Mary Ellis’s grave rests just two miles from Rutgers University — and that the Looking Glass formed at Rutgers in 1969 — only fueled that romantic speculation.
But as Lurie has patiently explained over the years, the Mary Ellis connection is only a myth. And in a delightful 2024 YouTube interview with Meredith Marx, he finally put the theories to rest, sharing the real origin of “Brandy.”
According to Lurie, the fictional Brandy was originally named Randy, his high school girlfriend. But as he began shaping the story, the name didn’t feel right. “The girl’s name can’t be Randy,” he told Marx. “First of all, that’s ambiguous — it could be a boy or a girl. And if she’s a barmaid, she should be Brandy.” And just like that, Randy became Brandy, and a pop-rock classic was born.
The line about the silver chain from “the North of Spain” has also intrigued listeners for decades. While many assumed it was simply poetic flair, historians confirm that northern Spain did, in fact, produce significant quantities of fine silver, with the Iberian Peninsula serving as a major source of the metal since antiquity. That means the lyric is not only lovely — it’s surprisingly accurate.
Released as a B-side to “Don’t It Make You Feel Good,” “Brandy” might have disappeared into obscurity if not for WPGC program director Harv Moore in Washington, D.C., who flipped the record and gave the song heavy airplay. Within hours, the station’s phone lines were overwhelmed. Within weeks, “Brandy” was climbing the charts. And soon it became a #1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100, forever anchoring the Looking Glass in pop-music history.
More than 50 years later, Lurie — now 77 years old — continues to perform. Recent shows have taken him to Monroe, NC; Ledyard, CT; and San Diego, CA, with upcoming dates scheduled in New Jersey, Delaware and beyond. After years working as a film and television music supervisor on projects such as Alien 3, A Night at the Roxbury and Spanglish, Lurie has returned to the stage, where he now performs alongside yacht-rock and classic-rock lineups. His voice, like Brandy’s silver chain, remains polished by time.
Be sure to check out the video of the Looking Glass performing “Brandy.” The lyrics are below if you’d like to sing along…
“Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl)”
Written by Elliot Lurie. Performed by The Looking Glass.
There’s a port on a western bay
And it serves a hundred ships a day
Lonely sailors pass the time away
And talk about their homes
And there’s a girl in this harbor town
And she works layin’ whiskey down
They say, Brandy, fetch another round
She serves them whiskey and wine
The sailors say: “Brandy, you’re a fine girl” (you’re a fine girl)
“What a good wife you would be” (such a fine girl)
“Yeah, your eyes could steal a sailor from the sea”
Brandy wears a braided chain
Made of finest silver from the North of Spain
A locket that bears the name
Of the man that Brandy loved
He came on a summer’s day
Bringin’ gifts from far away
But he made it clear he couldn’t stay
No harbor was his home
The sailors say, “Brandy, you’re a fine girl” (you’re a fine girl)
“What a good wife you would be” (such a fine girl)
“But my life, my lover and my lady is the sea”
Yeah, Brandy used to watch his eyes
When he told his sailor stories
She could feel the ocean fall and rise
She saw its ragin’ glory
But he had always told the truth, Lord, he was an honest man
And Brandy does her best to understand
At night when the bars close down
Brandy walks through a silent town
And loves a man who’s not around
She still can hear him say
She hears him say, “Brandy, you’re a fine girl” (you’re a fine girl)
“What a good wife you would be” (such a fine girl)
“But my life, my lover and my lady is the sea”
It is, yes it is,
“Brandy, you’re a fine girl” (you’re a fine girl)
“What a good wife you would be” (such a fine girl)
“But my life, my lover, my lady is the sea”
Credit: Screen capture via YouTube/CandidDirector.