Keep track of the featured songs each week along with their common theme and you could win a $25 gift card from Jersey Mike’s, where the sandwiches are always a Sub Above.
An enduring hit from 1967, today’s song has now been played on radio in the US more than 10 million times, but mystery still surrounds the inspiration for the song that today’s singer now claims wasn't one of his best.
“I've got about 300 songs that I think are better,” he was quoted as saying in a recent interview.
The world disagrees, apparently:
In January 2007 this song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.
In November 2004 it was listed at 109 on the Rolling Stone magazine list of 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
It’s one of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.
In 2000 it was listed at 21 on Rolling Stone and MTV's list of 100 Greatest Pop Songs, and it also was listed as 49 on VH1's list of the 100 Greatest Rock Songs.
But just who was the Girl from the song? The song may have been about a Belfast girl, but Stuart Bailie of something called ‘the Oh Yeah Centre’ thinks the singer may have been using poetic license.
“I'd like to think it's about Belfast and that the stadium he refers to may have been The Oval, a football stadium, in east Belfast.
According to today’s Irish singing legend, the single was originally entitled ‘Brown Skinned Girl’. Some have speculated that radio stations in the US would never have played the song with its original title, Brown Skinned Girl, but the singer himself says it was just a simple oversight.
He said: “That was just a mistake. After we'd recorded it, I looked at the tape box and didn't even notice that I'd changed the title. It's just one of those things that happens.”
Despite the title change, the song had to be altered AGAIN in order to get airplay. In the third verse, the line "Making love in the green grass" was overdubbed with a line from the first verse, "Laughin‚ and a-runnin‚" to make it more radio-friendly that have achieved multi-million US radio and television performances.
But today's singer still has some way to go to catch up with the act with the most airplay in US radio history. The Righteous Brothers' You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin’ has been heard over 15 million times — and is still going strong as the number one most played song of all time.
Pretty rarified air for today’s song! Van Morrison! Brown Eyed Girl!