Woman (song)

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Woman
John Lennon
publication January 12, 1981
length 3:32
Genre (s) Pop song
Author (s) John Lennon
album Double fantasy
Chart positions
Explanation of the data
Singles
Woman
  DE 4th 02/23/1981 (28 weeks)
  AT 3 03/15/1981 (16 weeks)
  CH 2 03/01/1981 (9 weeks)
  UK 1Template: Infobox chart placements / maintenance / NR1 link 01/24/1981 (11 weeks)
  US 2 01/17/1981 (20 weeks)

Woman is a song by John Lennon from 1980, written by him and produced in cooperation with Yoko Ono and Jack Douglas. It appeared on the album Double Fantasy in November 1980 and as a single two months later .

history

John Lennon commented on the creation, among other things, in an interview he conducted on December 5, 1980 with Jonathan Cott for the music magazine Rolling Stone . On a “sunny afternoon in Bermuda”, he realized how much women do for us.

"Anyway, in Bermuda, what suddenly dawned on me was everything I was taking for granted."

"What suddenly became clear to me in Bermuda was what I had taken for granted."

- John Lennon, 1980

In extensive interviews with David Sheff for Playboy magazine (September 1980) and Andy Peebles for BBC Radio 1 (December 6, 1980), John Lennon explained the background to the song. Among other things, he pointed out that on the one hand it was a love song for Yoko Ono , on the other hand it was also a message to all women. It is also an admission of his own weaknesses and mistakes in behavior towards women.

"My history of relationships with women is a very poor one - very macho, very stupid ... very sensitive and insecure but acting aggressive and macho."

"My story about relationships with women is a very pathetic one - very macho, very stupid ... very sensitive and insecure, but portraying the aggressive macho on the outside."

- John Lennon, 1980

Musically, the piece brought back memories of the Beatles in Lennon . In the BBC interview with Andy Peebles, he called it beatley and compared it to Girl , a piece from 1965 from the album Rubber Soul . He also mentioned this comparison in an interview with Jonathan Cott, where he described Woman as "a grown-up version" of Girl .

The song begins with Lennon's whispered words “For the other half of the sky.” (German: “For the other half of the sky.”). In an interview for the BBC, John Lennon provided an explanation for this introduction, which is a modification of a quote by Mao Zedong . For Lennon, that's the central message of the song: “All that talk about men and women is a joke. Both are nothing without each other. It was a different way of seeing how I think about women, and I can't put it better than in this song. "

The recordings took place in August and September 1980 in the studio "The Hit Factory" in New York . In addition to John Lennon (vocals, guitar), Earl Slick (guitar), Hugh McCracken (guitar), Tony Levin ( electric bass ), George Small ( keyboard ), Arthur Jenkins ( percussion ) and Andy Newmark ( drums ) were involved.

Publications

The single was released on January 12, 1981. On the B-side was the yoko-ono composition Beautiful Boys . It reached number one on the charts in Canada, Great Britain, Ireland and New Zealand. In the US, the single reached second place on the Billboard Hot 100 . Woman was the second decoupled song from the album Double Fantasy and the first to be released after John Lennon's death (December 8, 1980).

Cover versions

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ release date
  2. ↑ Sources chart positions: DE / AT CH UK US
  3. ↑ a b Rollin Stone, Issue 335, January 22, 1981
  4. ^ A b Johnny Rogan: Lennon . London: Calidore, 2006. pp. 178f.
  5. ^ John Blaney: Lennon and McCartney - Together Alone: ​​A Critical Discography of their Solo Work . Jawbone, 2007. p. 143.
  6. ^ John Blaney: Lennon and McCartney - Together Alone: ​​A Critical Discography of their Solo Work . Jawbone, 2007. p. 147.