Brown Eyed Girl – Van Morrison
Artist: Van Morrison
Release: 1967
Album: Blowin’ Your Mind
Brown Eyed Girl has had over 16 million hits just on YouTube!! Van The Man says he’s never received a penny in royalties – but then have you ever heard of Bang records?
It dates from an age when you would make a feature of the fact that the recording was in stereo.
All we know is that if you write a chorus with the words Sha la la la .. la te da people are going to sing along!
Structure
Brown Eyed Girl has an interesting structure.
It has a refrain at the end of each verse – these are lines that get repeated with the same words – here its the word ‘my brown eyed girl, yeah you, my brown eyed girl’. Talk about making sure your audience will remember the title!
It also has a strange 2 bar pre-chorus which forms a nice link to the big joining in bit of the sha la la chorus.
So the structure is:
Intro, verse 1+ refrain, verse 2 + refrain, pre chorus, chorus, instrumental, verse 3 + refrain, pre chorus, chorus to fade.
Strum Pattern
There are 4 beats to the bar in this piece.
We’ll upload a video of how to do the strum pattern soon, promise!
MAIN PATTERN
This strum pattern is in quavers and starts on beat 1.
Stroke: D (U) D U (D) U D (U)
Count: 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +
Chords
Lyrics
Instrumental(|G 2 3 4 |C 2 3 4 |G 2 3 4 |D 2 3 4 ) X2
== VERSE 1 ==
|G 2 3 4 |C 2 3 4 |G 2 3 4 |D 2 3 4
Hey where did we go days where the rains came
down in the hol low playing a new game
laughing and a running hey hey skipping and a jumping
in the mis-----ty mor--- ning fog with ah our hearts are thumping with you
== REFRAIN ==
|C 2 3 4 |D 2 3 4 |G 2 3 4 |Em 2 3 4
my brown eyed girl
|C 2 3 4 |D 2 3 4 |G 2 3 4 |D7 2 3 4
yeah you my brown eyed girl (Do you re-
|G 2 3 4 |C 2 3 4 |G 2 3 4 |D 2 3 4
What ever happ- ened tuesday is so slow
going down the old mine with a tran--sis----- tor ra---dio
standing in the sunglight laugh--ing hidin' behind a rainbow wall
slip-ping and a sli-- ding all along the water fall with you
== REFRAIN ==
|G 2 3 4 |C 2 3 4 |G 2 3 4 |D 2 3 4
So hard to find my way now that im all on my own
I saw you just the other day my you have grown
cast my memory back there lord sometimes I'm overcome thinking bout it
making love in the green grass behind the sta-------dium with you
2 bars pre chorus
|D7 2 3 4 |1 2 3 4
-mem ber when we used to sing
Chorus
|D7 2 3 4 |D7 2 3 4 -member when we used to sing
sha la la la la la la
|G 2 3 4 |D 2 3 4 |G 2 3 4 |C 2 3 4
la la lala te da sha la la la la la la
|G 2 3 4 |D 2 3 4 |G 2 3 4 |G 2 3 4
la la lala te da la te da
Instrumental