“Brandy” (for a woman) is just such a 60s-70s sounding name, is what I’m saying.
Apparently it was a male name in the 19th C.
I agree. Brandy, as a female name, became popular in the mid-20th century and saw a significant spike after the song’s release in 1972.
If the songwriter wished to evoke an olden days vibe, a name like Branwen would be more appropriate.
Conversely, it would be jarring if the song “Rhiannon” by Fleetwood Mac was titled “Candi,” or if “Scheherazade” by Renaissance was titled “Bambi.”
Next thing you know folks will be asking when Timothy got eaten, when mama used to dance for the money they’d throw, or when the guy wanted her to knock 3 times on the ceiling…
Early 70s, of course! Right around the time my parents bough us kids one of those folding record players (this one, I think). It had the adapter to stack 45s, and one of my older sisters built up quite the selection, bought from Goldblatt’s…
I mean, the funny thing in all this is that the songwriter had a crush on a girl named Randy, but he thought that was an unusual name for a girl, so he changed it to Brandy for the song.
Did taverns in ports back in days of old ever really shut down at night? I say the story happens in contemporty 70’s timeframe.
I see your point.
But I think you forget how little international retail commerce there was back in Ye Olde Darke Ages of e.g. 1960 when I was a toddler.
At least in the USA, people brought locally-made jewelry back from European or other transoceanic trips precisely because the stuff was simply unobtainable in North America with very few exceptions. No way to learn of its existence, no way to locate a retailer for it, and no way to get it directly yourself. To get exotic you had to visit exotic in person.
Someone from e.g. 1960s Germany or UK might have a lot more success seeing stuff from 1960s France, Italy, or Spain in their local retailers. But the songwriter is bringing his (probably unwitting) US perspective to the scenario.
Geography is another casualty of the rhyming needs of song-writing. My favorite is the song The Night Chicago Died. Written by some folks from the UK who sang about Chicago’s “old East side”. Chicago has no east side: it’d be out in a big cold lake.
But assuming “western” isn’t just a throwaway word the port could be anywhere on Europe’s west coast too. Yeah, the song is written in English for a mostly US audience, but the theme works in any language.
Could the western port be Rotterdam? Sure it could. Sailors in any portside bar on the planet speak a lot of different languages but as long as they can say “beer,” “whiskey”, or “wine” in the local lingo, they’re fluent enough to get by in a bar.
The name alone suggests contemporary. Made more so if spelled Brandi. More so still if the “i” is doted with a heart.
Or a little daisy. Signed with a pink-ink pen.
That’s what I was about to say. “Brandy” is a very 1970s name for a woman.
Minor, minor nitpick. As a native NW sider, I agree with you. But on occasion I’ve had folk from down near Calumet Heights towards Whiting way disagree with me.
On reflection, I realize my second example was poorly chosen. Of course mama used to dance in some unspecified European past when Romani (by a different name) travelled via caravan…
They picked up a boy just south of Mobile (Alabama presumably.)
I have seen this a million times - but I still have difficulty with it. I understand that a town/city might not have a neighborhood/district called “the East Side” but how can it not have an East side - even if the eastern border is a lake/river /ocean why wouldn’t the shore be the eastern part of that city ?
Add me to the group that picture the song in a time of larger sailing ships. That’s just the era I imagine men working as sailors being in love with the sea. And even in the '70s telling a woman “what a fine wife you would be” would be quite … quaint. Yeah the silver from Spain being something noteworthy added to it.
I don’t always create pictures with songs but this one I did.
And to follow up on my post, were drinking establishments even known as bars before the late 1800’s? Seems to be that bars closing down at night is more of a 20th century thing. Before it would have been taverns, pubs or saloons.
These are easy. All are contemporary to their time. Poor Timothy was like the Onion article about how the people trapped in an elevator resorted to cannibalism too early. Gypsies Tramps and Thieves was contemporary, Traveling, well, gypsies, were common back then. And Knock Three Times is just going for that NYC crowed living feel.
And of course Chicago has an east side. It just doesn’t have an East Side. Likewise, there’s a south Detroit, just not a South Detroit.
I feel the same way about south Detroit.
The city “center” (downtown) abuts the lake. There are neighborhoods north west and south of downtown but not east of it.
I think maybe the only reason the silver came from northern Spain is because Spain rhymes with chain.
But it still evoked the days of Spain as a center of sailing.
Your interpretation impresses me as conflating “side” with “border.” Nothing necessarily wrong with such usage. Just not one I’ve ever heard used before.
In my experience, folk usually talk about “sides” of the city in terms of where they live. In Chicago, The north/south/west sides are extremely different - not to mention near/far subsets of those, and NW and SW.
If I say I grew up on the NW side, would you assume my house straddled the border? Or something else?
Chicago is laid out in a strict NSEW grid, with 0/0 at State and Madison downtown. So yeah, technically there are a couple of blocks east of State, but no Chicagoan I’ve ever met described those couple of blocks downtown and up through Lincoln Park and further north, or down to the Museum of Science and Industry as “the East side.”
On the far south side, the lake curves, such that those couple of blocks are added to. But, as a long time NW sider, I’d argue that as you get close to Indiana, that doesn’t even qualify as “Chicago.” 
Of course, I’m sure plenty of folk from down there disagree just as strongly, feeling the far NW side is pretty much a suburb, indistinguishable from Norridge, Elmwood Park…