Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue

"Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue"
Single by Crystal Gayle
from the album We Must Believe in Magic
B-side	All I Wanna Do in Life
Released	1977
Format	7"
Genre	Country pop, Adult contemporary
Length	2:40
Label	United Artists
Writer(s)	Richard Leigh
Producer	Allen Reynolds
Certification	Gold (RIAA)
Crystal Gayle singles chronology
"I'll Do It All Over Again" (1977) "Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue" (1977) "I've Cried (The Blue Right Out of My Eyes)" (1977)

"Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue" is a popular country-pop music song by Crystal Gayle (Crystal has blue eyes), younger sister of Loretta Lynn. The song was written by Richard Leigh and first appeared on Gayle's 1977 album, We Must Believe in Magic.

Background

"Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue" composer Richard Leigh had been responsible for all three of Crystal Gayle's previous Top Ten C&W hits the third of which: "I'll Get Over You" had reached #1. According to Gayle's regular producer Allen Reynolds he was advised by Leigh's landlady: songwriter Sandy Mason Theoret, that Leigh was "a little down in the dumps lately because nothing much [was] happening" after the success of "I'll Get Over You": at Theoret's suggestion Reynolds visited Leigh to cheer him up. Reynolds - "we were sittin' on the floor...singing songs to one another. [Leigh] mentioned a song that his publisher was gonna get to Shirley Bassey...[and] sang it for me, 'Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue'. I said: 'Shirley Bassey, my ass, I want that song!'" Reynolds recalls that when he played "Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue" for Gayle "she was just as excited [by the song] as I was."^[1]

The track was recorded at Jack's Tracks in Nashville on 27 October 1976: as Reynolds' regular session keyboardist Charles Cochran had suffered a stroke with some resultant numbness in his hands Reynolds hired Hargus "Pig" Robbins to play keyboards and Robbins instantly devised the song's signature acoustic piano riff; Cochran was also featured on the session playing the horn parts on a Wurlitzer. Reynolds - "it was just one of those charmed sessions...[After] we presented the song to the musicians...it was about the third time running [through] that song that we ran tape...[Gayle] sang [the song] wonderfully. It came so fast that she wasn't sure that she had done her best job. I had to let her try to sing it again on two or three different occasions until she was comfortable with the original [vocal take], and that's what we went with. Everything on that recording was the original take as it went down, except the string section I added later." ^[1]

In a 2004 Country Music Television interview, Gayle stated that Leigh wrote the song because his dog had one brown eye and one blue eye.

Reception

The song became a worldwide hit single. In the United States, it topped the Billboard country music chart and became Gayle's first, (and biggest), crossover pop hit, reaching #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 for 3 weeks, behind Debby Boone's smash hit, You Light Up My Life. The album received Platinum status, the first by a female country singer. The song became Gayle's signature piece throughout her career. In 1978, the song won Gayle a Grammy Award for Best Female Country Vocal Performance. In 1999, the song was recognized by ASCAP as one of the ten most-performed songs of the 20th century. The song has a jazzy feel to it when compared to many other country songs of that era. Gayle had many more hit singles for the next ten years, such as "Talking in Your Sleep", "Half the Way" "You and I" (a duet with Eddie Rabbitt) and "I'll Get Over You", but none have achieved the same level of success as "Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue".

Cover versions

The song has been covered by Lorrae Desmond, Laura Fygi, the Nolans, Tessanne Chin, Alison Statton (aka Devine & Statton), Wendy Van Wanten and Dana Winner. Mireille Mathieu has recorded the song in German as "Tränen Würden Mir Nicht Stehn" while the French rendering "Mes yeux blues son gris" was recorded by Michèle Torr.

Chart performance

Chart (1977)	Peak position
U.S. Billboard Hot Country Songs	1
U.S. Billboard Hot 100	2
U.S. Billboard Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks	4
Canadian RPM Country Tracks	1
Canadian RPM Top Singles	1
Canadian RPM Adult Contemporary Tracks	1
Irish Singles Chart	4
UK Singles Chart	5
New Zealand Singles Chart	9
Dutch Top 40	10

References

1. ^ ^{a b} Kosser, Michael (2006). How Nashville Became Music City USA: 50 years of Music Row (1st ed.). Milwaukee WI: Hal Leonard Corporation. pp. 272. ISBN 0-634-09806-3. 

External links

• Song review from AllMusic

Preceded by "Way Down" by Elvis Presley	Billboard Hot Country Singles number-one single August 27-September 17, 1977	Succeeded by "I've Already Loved You in My Mind" by Conway Twitty
	RPM Country Tracks number-one single September 24-October 1, 1977	Succeeded by "Christopher Mary" by Burton & Honeyman
Preceded by "Elite Hotel" (Emmylou Harris, 1977)	Best Female Country Vocal Performance 1978	Succeeded by "Here You Come Again" (Dolly Parton, 1979)