| A Pair of Brown Eyes | |
| Type: | single |
| Artist: | The Pogues |
| Album: | Rum Sodomy & the Lash |
| B-Side: | "Whiskey You're the Devil" |
| Released: | 18 March 1985 |
| Genre: | Celtic rock |
| Length: | 4:54 |
| Label: | Stiff |
| Producer: | Elvis Costello |
| Prev Title: | Boys from the County Hell |
| Prev Year: | 1984 |
| Next Title: | Sally MacLennane |
| Next Year: | 1985 |
"A Pair of Brown Eyes" is a single by The Pogues, released on 18 March 1985.[1] The single was their first to make the UK Top 100, peaking at Number 72.[2] It featured on the band's second album, Rum Sodomy & the Lash, and was composed by Pogues front man Shane MacGowan. Its melody is loosely based on that of “Wild Mountain Thyme" (also known as "Will Ye Go Lassie Go"), a song by Francis McPeake in a traditional folk style.
The song references the Johnny Cash version of the song "A Thing Called Love": "And on the jukebox Johnny sang / About a thing called love". It also references Irish country music singers Ray Lynam and Philomena Begley's version of "My Elusive Dreams": "While Ray and Philomena sang / Of my elusive dream".
The music video for the single was directed in 1985 by Alex Cox and was set in a Nineteen Eighty-Four-esque Britain with Margaret Thatcher in the place of Big Brother as a supreme, god-like authoritarian figure. The video featured roles played by band members as well as a cameo by the record's producer Elvis Costello.
The song was ranked number 9 among the "Tracks of the Year" for 1985 by NME.[3]