“Golden Brown” by The Stranglers was released as a 7-inch single in 1982. It was the second release from their 6th studio album, La folie. It was their highest charting single in the UK and their record label’s highest selling single for many years, despite radio stations pulling it from their playlist due to the song’s rumored reference to drugs.
In his book The Stranglers Song by Song, frontman Hugh Cornwell stated, "'Golden Brown' works on two levels. It's about heroin and also about a girl... both provided me with pleasurable times."
The song originated when keyboardist Dave Greenfield experimented with a musical passage on the keyboard. While Greenfield perfected the synthesizer/harpsichord backing texture, Hugh Cornwell wrote 10 minutes worth of lyrics, and cut them down to fit the song.
