Mrs Brown You've Got a Lovely Daughter - 1997 Remaster

This song is about a guy who is heartbroken over losing his girl, so he decides to tell her mother all about it. It was originally sung by the actor Tom Courtenay in a 1963 British television play called The Lads, which Herman's Hermits lead singer Peter Noone recorded to tape. He and the band learned the song and started playing it in their live sets, especially at weddings where Noone would customize the lyrics ("Mrs. Smith, you've got a lovely daughter..."). Since the song had appeared in a TV play, the group could play it in England without paying royalties. 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."