Thursday 18 May 2023

there’s a port on a western bay and it serves a hundred ships a day (10. 748)

Released as the lead single off their eponymous debut album, the ballad, released on this this day in 1972—written by lead guitarist and vocalist Elliot Lurie—from Looking Glass tells the story of a barmaid, who pining for long long departed, rebuffs the advances of sailors transiting through, who proclaimed his life, his lover and his lady was the sea. The song’s enduring legacy includes an explosion in the popularity of the baby name “Brandy” in the early to mid-1970s and Barry Manilow reworking his standard as “Mandy” (originally with the same title) to avoid confusion plus a dozen cover versions. She serves them whiskey and wine.