“Brown Eyed Handsome Man” was originally released by Chess Records in September 1956 as the B-side to “Too Much Monkey Business.”

Flyn’ across the desert in the TWA
I saw a woman walking across the sand
She been walkin 30 miles en route to Bombay
To meet a Brown eyed handsome man
Her destination was a Brown eyed handsome man.

Glenn C. Altschuler explains that the lyrics of this song “played slyly with racial attitudes and even fears.” Martha Bayles elaborates, noting that “Berry’s penchant for bragging about his “Brown Eyed Handsome Man”’s appeal for white females outraged a lot of people.”

Additionally, Berry alludes to brown (eyed and handsome) of different races and from different parts of the world further playing into fears about minorities and miscegenation amongst many whites in the 1950s: “A lot of trouble for a brown eyed handsome man.”