Editing Golden Brown (section)

==Release and reception==
Initially, the band's label was hesitant to release the song as a single. Burnel recalled, "We had to insist on it being released. We'd been taken over by EMI and they thought we were awful – and they hated 'Golden Brown'. They said: this song, you can't dance to it, you're finished".<ref name=":0" /> The label ultimately released the song during the Christmas season, leaving it to compete with [[Christmas music|Christmas songs]]. Burnel stated, "They thought, it's weak, it's gonna die, it's gonna drown in the tsunami of Christmas shit… but it didn't. It developed legs of its own, it became a worldwide hit".<ref name=":0" />

Originally featured on the group's album ''[[La folie (album)|La folie]]'', which was released in November 1981, and later on the US pressings of ''[[Feline (The Stranglers album)|Feline]]'' (1983), "Golden Brown" was released as a single in January 1982, and was accompanied by a music video. The single reached No. 2 in the official [[UK Singles Chart]] in February 1982.<ref name="UK" /><ref>{{cite web|title= Official Singles Chart Top 100: 14 February 1982 – 20 February 1982 |publisher= [[Official Charts Company]] |access-date= 7 March 2017 |url= http://www.officialcharts.com/charts/singles-chart/19820214/7501/}}</ref> [[David Hamilton (broadcaster)|David Hamilton]], disc jockey on the [[Middle of the road (music)|middle-of-the-road]] and comparatively conservative [[BBC Radio 2]], made the single his "record of the week".<ref name="twomey" /> In a 2017 interview for Dutch television station Top 2000 a gogo, Hugh Cornwell said that he believed the song would have made it to the top spot if bassist Burnel had not told the press that it was about heroin, at which point broadcasters removed it from their playlists. "I would have waited till it got to Number 1 and <em>then</em> said it," he commented.<ref>{{cite web|title= Hugh Cornwell – Golden Brown (The Stranglers) – Het verhaal achter het nummer |publisher= Top 2000 a gogo |via= YouTube |date= 30 December 2017 |access-date= 21 January 2022 |url= https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SioL8ba0Bo}}</ref> EMI instead blamed the single's failure to reach the top spot on sales of both the studio and live single releases of [[the Jam]]'s "[[Town Called Malice]]", the number one single at the time, being counted together.<ref name="500 Number One Hits">{{cite book |last=Rice |first=Jo |title=The Guinness Book of 500 Number One Hits |publisher=Guinness Superlatives Ltd |year=1982 |isbn=0-85112-250-7 |edition=1st |location=Enfield, Middlesex |pages=221–2}}</ref> The song also reached the Top 10 in Ireland, Flanders, the Netherlands, and Australia.

In 1995, Black, Burnel and Greenfield appeared with impressionist [[Rory Bremner]] on his satirical Christmas special performing a [[Parody in popular music|parody]] version of the song about future Prime Minister [[Gordon Brown]], who was then [[Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer]].<ref>{{cite magazine |date=December 1995 |title=Sound Bites |url=https://archive.org/details/strangled-vol-2-no-44-1995-12/page/3/mode/2up |access-date=1 November 2021 |magazine=Strangled |publisher=Stranglers Information Service |page=3 |volume=2 |issue=44}}</ref>

In a 2012 [[BBC Radio 2]] listener poll of the nation's favourite singles to have peaked at number two, "Golden Brown" ranked fifth.<ref>{{cite web|title= Ultravox's Vienna tops 'number two' poll |work= [[BBC Online]] |date= 1 January 2013 |access-date= 1 January 2013 |url= https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-20881216}}</ref>

In January 2014, ''[[NME]]'' ranked the song at No. 488 on its list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time".<ref>{{cite magazine|first= Emily |last= Barker |title= The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time – 500–401 |magazine= [[NME]] |date= 31 January 2014 |access-date= 28 July 2016 |url= https://www.nme.com/photos/the-500-greatest-songs-of-all-time-500-401-1421945}}</ref>