“Brandy(you're a Fine Girl)” by Looking Glass

"Brandy (You're a Fine Girl)" is the 1972 hit from Looking Glass, pulled from the band's self-titled debut and written by Elliot Lurie, the group's lead guitarist and co-singer. It's a soft-rock yarn about a barmaid in a busy harbor town who shrugs off lonely sailors while pining for the one who left, a man who told her his real love was the sea. A local legend tied Brandy to Mary Ellis, a New Jersey spinster who died in 1828, but Lurie has shot that down.

Its push began with Epic promotion man Robert Mandel, who in February 1972 carried a test pressing to every radio station around Washington and Baltimore; it ended up on top of both the Billboard Hot 100 and the Cash Box Top 100. In 2017, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 turned it into a father's way of explaining himself to his son, and Lurie was thrilled.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.