"Brown Eyed Girl" (Originally
titled "Brown-Skinned Girl", Morrison changed it to "Brown Eyed
Girl" when he recorded it.) was written and performed by Northern Irish
singer and songwriter Van Morrison in March of 1967 for Bang Records owner and
producer Bert Berns, A Russian-American Jew from Brooklyn.
The song peaked at number 10 on
the Billboard Hot 100 and stayed there for 16 weeks. It has since been covered
by hundreds of bands over the decades. Morrison didn’t look at the contract with
Bert Berns well enough and he sought no legal advice before signing. As a
result, according to Morrison, he has never received any royalties for writing
or recording this song.
The contract made him liable for virtually
all recording expenses incurred for all of his Bang Records recordings before
royalties would be paid, and after those expenses were recouped, the revenue
would become the "subject of some highly creative accounting".
In 2011, "Brown Eyed
Girl" joined an elite group of songs as it was honored for having 10
million US radio air plays and therefore becoming one of the ten songs that
have been registered with BMI that have received that number of radio plays. As
of 2015, "Brown Eyed Girl" remains the most downloaded and most
played song of the entire 1960s decade.