I love the intro to this song. Chuck Berry hits that guitar figure, and it is off and running. It never really lets up after that. The song just rolls along for a little over two minutes, and then it’s gone.
Chuck Berry wrote and recorded this in 1956, during the incredible early run that also gave us songs like Maybellene, Roll Over Beethoven, and Too Much Monkey Business. It was released by Chess Records as the B-side of Too Much Monkey Business and later appeared on Berry’s 1957 debut album, After School Session.
Berry got the idea while traveling in California. He later remembered seeing mostly Black and Hispanic audiences in some of the places where he performed. Those experiences started working their way into the song. Some say it’s a nod to Jackie Robinson as well.
That gives it another dimension. On the surface it’s funny, clever and full of Berry’s usual wordplay. Women throughout history apparently can’t resist the brown-eyed handsome man. Underneath the humor, though, Berry was writing about race at a time when doing it too directly could limit where a record was played.
That’s one of the things that made Chuck Berry such a great songwriter. He could put quite a bit into a two-minute rock and roll song without stopping the music to explain it.
The final verse is one of my favorites. Berry suddenly takes us to a baseball game. There are two outs with nobody on, the batter hits one into the stands and comes around third headed for home. Berry never names the player, but coming only nine years after Jackie Robinson broke baseball’s color barrier, the image of a brown-eyed, handsome man winning the game would have meant something. Although…he did take poetic license with 2-3 the count.
Berry recorded the song during the same April 1956 session that produced Roll Over Beethoven and Too Much Monkey Business. Johnnie Johnson was on piano, Willie Dixon played bass, and Melvin Billups was on drums. That’s quite a band behind you. Johnnie Johnson would have a resurgence in the 1980s and 90s.
Sometimes his guitar playing gets reduced to that familiar Chuck Berry riff, but listen to the records themselves. His timing was fantastic. He knew exactly when to play and when to leave room. This song is a perfect example. I love that opening, but I also love what happens afterward. Chuck Berry gets the thing moving. Then he never lets it stop.
Brown Eyed Handsome Man
A-a-arrested on charges of unemployment
He was sitting in the witness stand
The judges wife called up the district attorney
She said, “Free that brown-eyed man.
If you want your job, you better free that brown-eyed man.”
Flying across the desert in a TWA,
I saw a woman walkin’ ‘cross the sand.
She’d been walking thirty miles en route to Bombay
To meet a brown-eyed handsome man,
Her destination was a brown-eyed handsome man.
Way back in history, three thousand years,
In fact ever since the world began,
There’s been a whole lotta good women shedding tears
All for a brown-eyed handsome man,
(It)’sa lot of trouble with a brown-eyed handsome man.
Beautiful daughter couldn’t make up her mind
Between a doctor and a lawyer man.
Her mother told her, “Darling go out and find yourself
A brown-eyed handsome man,
Just like your daddy He’s a brown-eyed handsome man.”
Marlo Venus was a beautiful lass,
She had the world in the palm of her hand
She lost both her arms in a wrestling match
To meet a brown-eyed handsome man,
She fought and won herself a brown-eyed handsome man.
2-3 the count with nobody on
He hit a high fly into the stands
Roundin’ third, he was headed for home
It was a brown-eyed handsome man that won the game
It was a brown-eyed handsome man.
