American Woman

"American Woman" is a song released by the Canadian rock band The Guess Who in January 1970, from their sixth studio album of the same name. It was later released in March 1970 as a single backed with "No Sugar Tonight", and it reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100.[4][5] Billboard magazine placed the single at number three on the Year-End Hot 100 singles of 1970 list.[6] On May 22, 1970, the single was certified as gold by the RIAA.[7]

This article is about the song. For the album, see American Woman (album). For other uses, see American Woman (disambiguation).

"American Woman"
Cover of the 1970 German single
Single by the Guess Who
from the album American Woman
B-side"No Sugar Tonight"
ReleasedMarch 1970 (1970-03)
RecordedAugust 13, 1969
Genre
Length
  • 3:51 (single version)
  • 5:10 (album version)
LabelRCA Victor
Songwriter(s)
Producer(s)Jack Richardson
The Guess Who singles chronology
"No Time"
(1969)		 "American Woman"
(1970)		 "Hand Me Down World"
(1970)

Produced by Jack Richardson, the single was recorded on August 13, 1969, at RCA's Mid-America Recording Center in Chicago.[8]

Writing and lyrics

The music and lyrics of the song were improvised on stage during a concert in Southern Ontario[9] (the guitarist, Randy Bachman, recalled it being in Kitchener,[10] although Burton Cummings, the lead singer, said it was at the Broom and Stone, a curling rink in Scarborough).[11] Bachman was playing notes while tuning his guitar after replacing a broken string, and he realised he was playing a new riff that he wanted to remember. He continued playing it and the other band members returned to the stage and joined in, creating a jam session in which Cummings improvised the lyrics.[10] They noticed a kid with a cassette recorder making a bootleg recording and asked him for the tape.[12] They listened to the tape and noted down the words that Cummings had extemporized, and which he later revised.[11]

The song's lyrics have been the matter of debate, often interpreted as an attack on U.S. politics (especially the draft). Cummings, who composed the lyrics, said in 2013 that they had nothing to do with politics. "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. When I said 'American woman, stay away from me,' I really meant 'Canadian woman, I prefer you.' It was all a happy accident."[11]

Jim Kale, the group's bassist, 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.[9]

Bachman expressed the view in 2014 that it was "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".[10]

The Guess Who were invited to play at the White House on July 17, 1970, shortly after the song's release. Because of its perceived anti-American lyrics, Pat Nixon, the wife of President Richard Nixon, asked that they not play "American Woman".[13]

Personnel

While most of the band's charting songs during this period were credited to just Bachman or Cummings or the two of them, this piece was credited to all four members of the band, in keeping with the way they all first improvised it together on stage. This full-band writing credit happened only one other time for The Guess Who, with their 1973 top 20 Canadian hit "Follow Your Daughter Home", albeit with a different line-up at that time.

Chart performance

Lenny Kravitz version
"American Woman"
Standard non-US artwork
Single by Lenny Kravitz
from the album 5 / Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
ReleasedJune 1999 (1999-06)
Recorded1997–98
GenreFunk rock
Length3:50
LabelVirgin
Songwriter(s)
Producer(s)Lenny Kravitz
Lenny Kravitz singles chronology
"Fly Away"
(1998)		 "American Woman"
(1999)		 "Black Velveteen"
(1999)

One of the most notable covers of "American Woman" is Lenny Kravitz's 1999 version recorded 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."[26]

The cover reached the top 20 in Australia, Finland, Iceland, New Zealand and Spain, as well as number 26 in Canada and number 49 on the US Billboard Hot 100. 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" (Album Version) - 4:25
  2. "American Woman" (Single version) – 3:50
  3. "Straight Cold Player" (Live performance) – 3:42
  4. "Thinking of You" (Hexum Dancehall Remix) – 5:58
  5. "Fields of Joy" (Live performance) – 4:20

Awards

Grammy Awards 2000

  • Best Male Rock Performance: Won

Charts

Weekly charts
Chart (1999) Peak
position
Australia (ARIA)[27] 14
Canada Top Singles (RPM)[28] 26
Canada Rock/Alternative (RPM)[29] 2
Finland (Suomen virallinen lista)[30] 16
France (SNEP)[31] 88
Germany (Official German Charts)[32] 78
Iceland (Íslenski Listinn Topp 40)[33] 2
Netherlands (Single Top 100)[34] 59
New Zealand (Recorded Music NZ)[35] 12
Poland (LP3)[36] 13
Spain (PROMUSICAE)[37] 19
Sweden (Sverigetopplistan)[38] 59
US Billboard Hot 100[39] 49
US Adult Alternative Songs (Billboard)[40] 18
US Adult Top 40 (Billboard)[41] 23
US Alternative Airplay (Billboard)[42] 7
US Mainstream Rock (Billboard)[43] 3
US Mainstream Top 40 (Billboard)[44] 17

Year-end charts
Chart (1999) Position
Australia (ARIA)[45] 71
Canada Rock/Alternative (RPM)[46] 10
US Alternative Songs (Billboard)[47] 24
US Mainstream Rock (Billboard)[47] 14

Certifications
Region CertificationCertified units/sales
Australia (ARIA)[48] Gold 35,000^

^shipments figures based on certification alone

Other 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.[49] Butthole Surfers created a drum-heavy experimental version for their 1986 album Rembrandt Pussyhorse.,[50] In 2018 the band The Rock Alchemist released a heavy-rock version as an album-single.

Use in film

It was featured in Sam Mendes's film American Beauty, performed by main character Lester Burnham (played by Kevin Spacey).[51] Sam the Eagle performed a karaoke version of this song in a Muppets viral video, until he stops in protest of its lyrics, and finds that it is a Canadian song even more upsetting. It was used in the HBO trailer for the film 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 film (2000), starring Yancy Butler and based on the Top Cow comic book series. American Woman was featured in the second instalment of the Austin Powers film trilogy, 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.

See also

References
  1. Joan Nicks; Jeannette Sloniowski (October 21, 2009). Slippery Pastimes: Reading the Popular in Canadian Culture. Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press. p. 221. ISBN 978-1-55458-761-2.
  2. James E. Perone (2001). Songs of the Vietnam Conflict. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 62. ISBN 978-0-313-31528-2.
  3. Jacqueline Edmondson Ph.D. (October 3, 2013). Music in American Life: An Encyclopedia of the Songs, Styles, Stars, and Stories that Shaped our Culture [4 volumes]: An Encyclopedia of the Songs, Styles, Stars, and Stories That Shaped Our Culture. ABC-CLIO. p. 53. ISBN 978-0-313-39348-8.
  4. Martin Charles Strong (2002). The Great Rock Discography. Canongate. p. 912. ISBN 978-1-84195-312-0.
  5. The Guess Who - Awards at AllMusic
  6. Billboard Year-End Hot 100 singles of 1970
  7. "Type "The Guess Who" under Artist". RIAA. Archived from the original on June 26, 2007. Retrieved 2011-08-13. This song was originally written and performed at a curling club in Waterloo, Ontario, which at that time brought in bands. The club has since closed and became a Home Hardware Store on Weber St. near University Ave. Not far from Laurier University. There is a commemorative plaque inside the current store memorializing this event.
  8. Greatest Hits RCA Victor BG2 67774 liner notes
  9. "'American Woman' - The Guess Who". Superseventies.com. May 9, 1970. Archived from the original on July 17, 2011. Retrieved August 13, 2011.
  10. Prato, Greg (December 23, 2014). "Randy Bachman : Songwriter Interviews". Songfacts.
  11. Ouzounian, Richard (August 30, 2013). "Burton Cummings doesn't live in the past, but he loves it". The Toronto Star. We were playing out in Scarborough, at this curling arena called Broom and Stone.
  12. Cummings, Burton (July 23, 2013). "The Guess Who legend reveals true origin of 'American Woman'". Used View (Interview). Interviewed by Ray Shasho. Clarity Digital Group. Retrieved June 21, 2017. It was jammed onstage one night in Mississauga, Ontario, we were playing at a club called the Broom & Stone which was actually a curling rink and doing two shows that night. Between the two shows, I was outside bartering with this kid, he had some old Gene Vincent records that I wanted to get for my collection and tried to strike up a deal with this guy. The next thing I know, it's time to start the second show and the other three guys have gone back on stage and I hear them start this riff ... I said to this guy, Oh my God; I'm supposed to be on stage man, I've got to run, I'll see you later about these Gene Vincent records. I run inside and run up onto the stage and just grab a microphone and singing whatever came into my head; it was all stream of consciousness at the moment stuff ... all that stuff about war machines and ghetto scenes, colored lights can hypnotize... it was all just spur-of-the-moment. And nobody would have ever heard it again but there happened to be a kid bootlegging the show that night. This was way back in the 60's and he had a cassette machine, and those machines were a relatively new invention at that time. But this was 1968, forty-five years ago. We noticed this onstage as the night went on and he still kept recording. So we motioned to our road manager, go get that tape, go get that tape! He got the cassette tape and we listened to it later and heard this jam about American Woman stay away from me. So we actually kind of learned it from that tape, otherwise nobody would have ever heard it again. So talk about a Cinderella story. And that was a monstrous hit record for us; it was number one on Billboard for three weeks. So it was all an accident, I guess the music gods were smiling on us. The music gods probably sent that kid with the cassette machine.
  13. Steve Huey. "The Guess Who | Biography & History". AllMusic. Retrieved October 2, 2016.
  14. "David Kent's "Australian Chart Book 1970-1992"". Austchartbook.com.au. Archived from the original on March 5, 2016. Retrieved 2016-07-03.
  15. "The Guess Who - American Woman/No Sugar Tonight". Official Charts Company. Retrieved 2011-08-13.
  16. "Top Singles - Volume 13, No. 12, May 9, 1970". RPM. Retrieved February 23, 2011.
  17. Steffen Hung. "The Guess Who - American Woman". hitparade.ch. Archived from the original on November 11, 2012. Retrieved 2011-08-13.
  18. Steffen Hung. "The Guess Who - American Woman". austriancharts.at. Archived from the original on November 3, 2012. Retrieved 2011-08-13.
  19. Steffen Hung. "The Guess Who - American Woman". dutchcharts.nl. Archived from the original on October 25, 2012. Retrieved 2011-08-13.
  20. "Search listener". Flavour of New Zealand. Retrieved July 3, 2016.
  21. "Cash Box Top Singles - 1970". Cashboxmagazine.com. Archived from the original on August 18, 2011. Retrieved August 13, 2011.
  22. "Item Display - RPM - Library and Archives Canada". collectionscanada.gc.ca.
  23. "Jaaroverzichten – Single 1970" (in Dutch). Single Top 100. Hung Medien. Retrieved February 25, 2018.
  24. "Top 100 Hits of 1970/Top 100 Songs of 1970". Musicoutfitters.com. Retrieved July 3, 2016.
  25. "Cash Box YE Pop Singles - 1970". cashboxmagazine.com. Archived from the original on September 22, 2012. Retrieved July 3, 2016.
  26. Pat Pemberton (August 6, 2010). "Randy Bachman Learns to Enjoy Lenny Kravitz's 'American Woman' Cover". Spinner Canada. Archived from the original on July 6, 2011. Retrieved November 11, 2010.
  27. "Australian-charts.com – Lenny Kravitz – American Woman". ARIA Top 50 Singles. Retrieved March 6, 2018.
  28. "Top RPM Singles: Issue 8373." RPM. Library and Archives Canada. Retrieved March 6, 2018.
  29. "Top RPM Rock/Alternative Tracks: Issue 8170." RPM. Library and Archives Canada. Retrieved March 6, 2018.
  30. "Lenny Kravitz: American Woman" (in Finnish). Musiikkituottajat – IFPI Finland. Retrieved March 6, 2018.
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  32. "Offiziellecharts.de – Lenny Kravitz – American Woman". GfK Entertainment Charts. Retrieved March 6, 2018.
  33. "Íslenski Listinn Topp 40 (15.7–22.7. 1999)". Dagblaðið Vísir (in Icelandic). July 16, 1999. Retrieved October 5, 2019.
  34. "Dutchcharts.nl – Lenny Kravitz – American Woman" (in Dutch). Single Top 100. Retrieved March 6, 2018.
  35. "Charts.nz – Lenny Kravitz – American Woman". Top 40 Singles. Retrieved March 6, 2018.
  36. "Notowanie nr911" (in Polish). LP3. July 16, 1999. Archived from the original on February 26, 2019. Retrieved February 26, 2019.
  37. "Spanishcharts.com – Lenny Kravitz – American Woman" Canciones Top 50. Retrieved March 6, 2018.
  38. "Swedishcharts.com – Lenny Kravitz – American Woman". Singles Top 100. Retrieved March 6, 2018.
  39. "Lenny Kravitz Chart History (Hot 100)". Billboard. Retrieved March 6, 2018.
  40. "Lenny Kravitz Chart History (Adult Alternative Songs)". Billboard. Retrieved March 6, 2018.
  41. "Lenny Kravitz Chart History (Adult Pop Songs)". Billboard. Retrieved March 6, 2018.
  42. "Lenny Kravitz Chart History (Alternative Airplay)". Billboard. Retrieved March 6, 2018.
  43. "Lenny Kravitz Chart History (Mainstream Rock)". Billboard. Retrieved March 6, 2018.
  44. "Lenny Kravitz Chart History (Pop Songs)". Billboard. Retrieved March 6, 2018.
  45. "ARIA Charts – End of Year Charts – Top 100 Singles 1999". ARIA. Retrieved December 24, 2018.
  46. "RPM 1999 Top 50 Rock Tracks". RPM. Library and Archives Canada. Retrieved December 24, 2018.
  47. "1999 – The Year in Music" (PDF). Billboard. Vol. 111 no. 52. December 25, 1999. p. 138. Retrieved April 2, 2020.
  48. "ARIA Charts – Accreditations – 1999 Singles". Australian Recording Industry Association. Retrieved December 24, 2018.
  49. Henderson, Alex. "Krokus One Vice at a Time review". Allmusic. Rovi Corporation. Retrieved December 23, 2015.
  50. Leland, John & Robbins, Ira. "Butthole Surfers biography". Trouser Press. Retrieved December 23, 2015.
  51. American Beauty Soundtrack IMDb.com, Retrieved March 7, 2015
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