When I first heard the classic song “Brandy” by Looking Glass, in my mind, I pictured the song in a historical setting, maybe 17th - 19th century. However, the lyrics give no clue as to when the story is set.
So, in your mind, is the song set in modern times or in days of yore?
I think it’s supposed to be happening today, but it really is timeless. On the rare occasions when I hear it on the radio, I turn up the volume.
What really happened to Brandy’s love:
Some reason I always thought the song was being told to the singer–like “this is a story told to me and now Im telling you” which would put it in the past… but having just looked at the lyrics it seems to be contemporary.
I don’t have an answer, but I’ve always imagined that Brandy was probably in the same unspecified era / song-universe as the sailors from “Ride Captain Ride”.
I picture it taking place in the years between WWI and WWII. I also picture the sailor being a US Navy sailor.
It never occurred to me that it was meant to be anything but roughly contemporary.
Sailors being able to get off ocean-going freighters and hang out in portside bars is pretty well a thing of the past here in 2024, but would still have been commonplace in 1972 when the song was released, albeit that situation was already fading.
The one thing that might make me think it was set in an earlier era was the idea of walking home at night through a quiet town. Housing, bars, and ships all in immediate proximity suggests an era where everything is smaller scale. But that could have been some minor US port in e.g. 1950. OTOH, in NYC even today there’s housing within walking distance from what used to be the freight wharves on the Hudson river.
Wiki points out the harbor serves “a hundred ships a day”. That’s a lot of ships, be they big or small.
Me too but I put very little thought into it.
17th - 19th century. The sailing ship era. Just seems that way to me even though it’s a story as old as … well you know.
19th century. Maybe early 20th. It’s more evocative and romantic that way, if there’s no fast food billboards as she walks over the cobblestones through the quiet town. The Pequod is in port in my version, alongside lots of other wooden ships with weathered figureheads. The establishment where she works has a name like The Sea Witch.
I’m with you. I don’t just hear a song. I usually “picture” a song when I hear it, especially if it’s intended to be a story. In the perhaps thousands of times I played that song on the radio, it never crossed my mind that it was in anything close to contemporary times.
I always thought of Brandy as contemporary.
I see the point that a 100 ships a day and lonely sailors sounds like the 1700’s or early 1800’s during the height of Colonial trading and shipping.
I guess it’s the music style that makes it feel like a contemporary person working at a bar.
I always thought of it as a contemporary.
My wife put together a playlist for an ice cream social at the old folks home today, and in one of those coincidences, “Brandy” was one of them…I asked her what she pictured, and she was thinking something in the 60s, like slightly older than when it came out.
I can’t imagine a barmaid walking through a silent town in the 17th–19th centuries. She would have been robbed/molested by footpads lurking in the shadows, especially if everyone knew about the silver locket from the north of Spain. The streets simply weren’t safe enough.
If I stretch my imagination somewhat, I can picture it set as far back as the 1950s, when streets were lit and cops might be around, but no farther.
Anyway, the lyrics are written in the present tense. That’s kind of a giveaway that it’s set in the present, no matter what year it is.
Just to add another thought: One verse in the song drew me in the direction that I have always imagined.
“Brandy wears a braided chain, of the finest silver from the north of Spain. A locket that bears the name of the man that Brandy loves.” That, to me, conjures up an image of olden times, when a sailor would have traveled to exotic locales and perhaps had a locket made to give his far away love as a keepsake. Something she could keep close to her heart when they were apart.
It’s the romantic in me.
In 1975, I gave my girlfriend a cameo on a gold chain for her 16th birthday. Guys have been doing stuff like that since time immemorial.
While that’s probably historically accurate, the world of music and literature tend to have a more sanitized and romantic view of the past.
And Closer To Home (Grand Funk)?
I always pictured the silent town as the hours just before dawn but after the last bar closed down, an hour which is mythic in contemporary books and music but I don’t remember from anything historical. “Brandy” was to me as modern as the day the song was released.
I assumed present.
I also think the sailor is lying to poor naive Brandy.
FWIW, the song being in the present tense is not a factor: Wooden Ships is in the present tense, but it takes place in an indefinite future time.