American Woman

src: www.returnofkings.com

"American Woman" is a song released by the Canadian rock band the Guess Who in November 1969, from their sixth studio album of the same name. It was later released in March 1970 as a single backed with "No Sugar Tonight", which reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100. Billboard magazine placed the single at number three on the Year-End Hot 100 singles of 1970 list. On May 22, 1970, the single was certified as gold by the RIAA.

Produced by Jack Richardson, the single was recorded on August 13, 1969 at RCA's Mid-America Recording Center in Chicago.

Video American Woman

Background

The song's origins took the form of a live jam that emerged during a curling rink concert in Southern Ontario (various recollections include Kitchener and Mississauga, while Burton Cummings, the lead singer, recalls the curling rink was "The Broom and Stone"--a popular Scarborough location for concerts at the time). When Bachman broke a string he unknowingly played the riff to American Woman when tuning the replacement string. He played it louder and Cummings improvised the lyrics to fit what Bachman was playing. They liked what they had played and noticed a kid with a cassette recorder making a bootleg recording and asked him for the tape. The subsequent studio recording features the original almost completely unchanged; only a few lines were added.

In an interview with Randy Bachman in Songfacts he elaborated further, calling this "an anti-war protest song," explaining that when they came up with it on stage, the band and the audience had a problem with the Vietnam War. Said Bachman: "We had been touring the States. This was the late '60s, one time at the US/Canada border in North Dakota they tried to draft us and send us to Vietnam. We were back in Canada, playing in the safety of Canada where the dance is full of draft dodgers who've all left the States".

Cummings (the song's lyricist) insists it has nothing to do with American pride. "What was on my mind was that girls in the States seemed to get older quicker than our girls and that made them, well, dangerous." Cummings told the Toronto Star in 2014. "When I said 'American woman, stay away from me,' I really meant 'Canadian woman, I prefer you.' It was all a happy accident."

Shortly after its release, the Guess Who were invited to play at the White House. Because of its perceived anti-American lyrics, Pat Nixon asked that they not play "American Woman".

Maps American Woman

Personnel

• Burton Cummings - vocals, rhythm guitar, acoustic guitar (intro on full album version)
• Randy Bachman - lead guitar
• Jim Kale - bass
• Garry Peterson - drums

While most of the band's charting songs during this period were written by Bachman or Cummings or Bachman/Cummings, this song is credited to all four members of the band, in keeping with the ad-lib style in which it was created live on stage that fateful night. This full-band writing credit would only happen one other time in the band's history, with their 1973 top 20 Canadian hit "Follow Your Daughter Home", albeit with a different line up by that date.

src: i.ytimg.com

Interpretations of the lyrics

The song's lyrics have been the matter of some debate, often interpreted as an attack on U.S. politics (especially the draft). Jim Kale, the group's bassist and the song's co-author, explained his take on the lyrics:

The popular misconception was that it was a chauvinistic tune, which was anything but the case. The fact was, we came from a very strait-laced, conservative, laid-back country, and all of a sudden, there we were in Chicago, Detroit, New York - all these horrendously large places with their big city problems. After that one particularly grinding tour, it was just a real treat to go home and see the girls we had grown up with. Also, the war was going on, and that was terribly unpopular. We didn't have a draft system in Canada, and we were grateful for that. A lot of people called it anti-American, but it wasn't really. We weren't anti-anything. John Lennon once said that the meanings of all songs come after they are recorded. Someone else has to interpret them.

src: i.ytimg.com

Chart performance

src: aboutislam.net

Cover versions

"American Woman" has been covered by a number of artists. In 1982, Swiss hard rock band Krokus included a cover on their album One Vice at a Time. Butthole Surfers created a drum-heavy experimental version for their 1986 album Rembrandt Pussyhorse.

Lenny Kravitz version

The most notable cover of "American Woman" is Lenny Kravitz's 1999 version. Kravitz recorded the song for the soundtrack of Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me. It was released as a single and was later included in the 1999 reissue of Kravitz's album 5. Kravitz's version is slower and softer than the original, without the signature guitar solo; he later said to Randy Bachman that the reason why he skipped the lead guitar part was "I couldn't get the sound. I couldn't get the tone." The music video (directed by Paul Hunter) featured actress Heather Graham (who starred in The Spy Who Shagged Me); the original political themes of the song were largely replaced by sex appeal. In 1999, Kravitz and his band were joined by the Guess Who for a live performance of "American Woman" at the MuchMusic Video Awards.

Track listing

1. "American Woman" (Single version) - 3:50
2. "Straight Cold Player" (Live performance) - 3:42
3. "Thinking of You" (Hexum Dancehall Remix) - 5:58
4. "Fields of Joy" (Live performance) - 4:20

Awards

Grammy Awards 2000

• Best Male Rock Performance: Won

Chart performance

src: womenintheworld.com

Use in film

It was also featured in Sam Mendes's movie American Beauty. Sam the Eagle performed a karaoke version of this song in a Muppets viral video. It is being used in the HBO trailer for the movie Game Change. A version sung by an older man was used in the film The Cable Guy (1996). It was heard during the ending credits of the Witchblade TV movie (2000), starring Yancy Butler and based on the Top Cow comic book series. American Woman was featured in the Austin Powers movie "The Spy Who Shagged Me" with Heather Graham dancing provocatively whilst it played. The song was featured in an episode of "Due South"s first season. Kelly Clarkson recorded a cover version of the song as a theme song from the Paramount Network TV series, American Woman.

src: americanwoman.co

See also

• List of anti-war songs

src: s3.amazonaws.com

References

src: previews.123rf.com

External links

• Lyrics of this song at MetroLyrics
• "American Woman" at Super Seventies

Source of the article : Wikipedia