Herman’s Hermits – Mrs. Brown, You’ve Got A Lovely Daughter

“Mrs. Brown, You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter” – Single by Herman’s Hermits from the album Herman’s Hermits. B-side: “I Gotta Dream On”
Released in April 1965.

Mrs. Brown, You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter” is a popular song written by British actor, screenwriter and songwriter Trevor Peacock. It was originally sung by actor Tom Courtenay in The Lads, an ITV Television Playhouse play of 1963, and released as a single on UK Decca.

The best-known version of the song is by Herman’s Hermits, who took it to number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 in May 1965.

When they recorded their first album in 1964, they needed one more song to complete it and were running out of studio time. Since they were familiar with this song, they recorded it with the little time they had left, completing the song in one take.

The song was written by Trevor Peacock, who was also appearing in the play. Peacock is well known to British TV audiences for playing the part of Jim Trott in the BBC sitcom The Vicar of Dibley.
“Mrs. Brown” wasn’t pegged as a single, but after an American DJ started giving it airplay, their record label issued it as a 45 and it became their first US #1 (in their native Britain it was never released as a single). Later in the year they returned to the top of the American charts with their revival of the old British musical number “I’m Henry The VIII, I Am.”

Hermits guitarist Derek Leckenby got the distinctive sound by muting his guitar strings. When performing the song, he would put a rag under the strings to get the effect. The Beatles used a similar guitar sound on “I Will.”

When this was #1 in America, Time magazine published an article called “Rock ‘n’ Roll: The Sound of the Sixties” that validated rock music as much more than a passing fad. It stated:

“Last week the man of the moment was Herman, 16, of Herman’s Hermits. An engaging high school dropout who looks like a toy sheep dog, Herman (real name: Peter Noone) smiles a lot, claps his hands over his head, and sticks his finger in his mouth when he sings. His ‘Mrs. Brown, You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter,’ rendered in a heavy English Midlands accent, was the #1 bestseller last week.”