Songfacts®:

• "Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue" was a huge crossover hit for Crystal Gayle, going to #1 on the Country chart and climbing to #2 on the Hot 100, held off for three weeks in 1977 by a much more hopeful ballad, "You Light Up My Life" by Debby Boone.
  
  It was the first pop hit for Gayle and her third Country chart-topper, following "I'll Get Over You" and "You Never Miss a Real Good Thing (Till He Says Goodbye)."
• The song was written by Richard Leigh, whose other hits as a songwriter include "Put Your Dreams Away" by Mickey Gilley, "Somewhere In My Broken Heart" by Billy Dean, and "Come From The Heart" by Kathy Mattea - he's in the Nashville Songwriters' Hall of Fame.
  
  According to the Billboard Book of #1 Country Hits, Leigh wrote the song while his beloved dog, Amanda, was staring up at him with her big brown eyes, which inspired the title. Unfortunately, a trash collector threw rocks at Amanda and hit her in the eye. She developed cataracts and the eye literally turned from brown to blue.
• The song has a similar theme to "I've Cried the Blue Right Out Of My Eyes," a song Gayle recorded in 1970 that was written by her older sister, Loretta Lynn. In that song, her eyes turn gray when the tears wash away the blue.
• Gayle made a lot of TV appearances when this song became a hit. For many viewers, it was their first look at Gayle, who had hair down to her feet.
• Crystal Gayle nailed her vocal on the first try. "That was a first take," she recalled to Billboard magazine. "I did not re-sing it. It just fell into place beginning with Pig Robbins' opening work on the piano. It was magic in the studio that day."
• "Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue" won 1977 Grammy Awards for Best Country Vocal plus Best Country Song for writer Richard Leigh.
• The song has a memorable bridge where Gayle sings:
  
  Tell me no secrets, tell me some lies
  Give me no reasons, give me alibis
  Tell me you love me and don't let me cry
  Say anything but don't say goodbye
  
  This idea of being so vulnerable to heartbreak that you'd rather hear a pleasant lie than the cold hard truth was later explored by Fleetwood Mac on their 1987 song "Little Lies."