I Am Woman
Encyclopedia
"I Am Woman" is a song cowritten by Helen Reddy
and singer/songwriter/guitarist Ray Burton and performed by Reddy. Released in its most well-known version in 1970, the song became an enduring anthem for the women’s liberation movement.
charts in December 1972. The song was the first #1 hit on the Billboard chart by an Australian-born artist and the first Australian-penned song to win a Grammy Award
(in her acceptance speech for Best Female Performance, Reddy thanked "God, because She makes everything possible"). It sold more than a million copies, and has been played more than a million times on US radio, and helped propel Reddy to a successful pop career which made her more than $40 million in America. As an example of the endurance of the song, it was played at the 2010 Academy Awards as the exit music for Kathryn Bigelow after she won the Best Director Oscar for "The Hurt Locker," the first time a woman won the award.
"I am Woman" was added to the National Film and Sound Archive
's Sounds of Australia Registry in 2009.
that yielded the hit "I Don't Know How to Love Him
", Reddy – then living in Los Angeles—was asked for an album. She gave the label a set of 10 jazz-tinged pop songs. Nestled among the Leon Russell
, Graham Nash
and Van Morrison
songs were two Reddy originals. "I Am Woman" was one of them.
The composition was the result of Reddy’s search for a song that would express her growing passion for female empowerment. In a 2003 interview in Australia’s Sunday Magazine (published with the Sunday Herald Sun
and Sunday Telegraph), she explained:
Reddy’s own long years on stage had also fueled her contempt for men who belittled women, she said. "Women have always been objectified in showbiz. I'd be the opening act for a comic and as I was leaving the stage he'd say, 'Yeah, take your clothes off and wait for me in the dressing room, I'll be right there'. It was demeaning and humiliating for any woman to have that happen publicly."
Reddy credits the song as having supernatural inspiration. She said:
"I remember lying in bed one night and the words, 'I am strong, I am invincible, I am woman', kept going over and over in my head. That part I consider to be divinely inspired. I had been chosen to get a message across." Pressed on who had chosen her, she replied: "The universe."
The next day she wrote the lyric and handed it to Australian guitarist Ray Burton to put it to music.
), was a friend who had often worked with Reddy in live venues across Australia. He has a different recollection of the song's beginning. He told Sunday Magazine he spoke to Reddy after she attended a series of regular women's meetings at which he says they would "sit around and whine about their boyfriends".
Reddy insists Burton didn't change a word of the lyrics. Yet she admits she had no expectations for the track. More than a year later, however, the song was picked to run behind the opening credits of Stand Up And Be Counted, a lightweight Hollywood women's lib comedy starring Jacqueline Bisset
, Loretta Swit
and Steve Lawrence
. On the strength of this, Capitol decided to release the song as a single. Because in its initial form I Am Woman ran to little more than two minutes, Reddy was asked to write an additional verse and chorus. The extra verse inserted the song's only reference to men ("Until I make my brother understand"). More importantly, the new version would add significant punch to a song that, in its initial form, was simple, bouncy and unconfronting.
In fact, she had some of the best LA session musician
s backing her:
The tracking session for "I Am Woman" was extremely difficult. Producer Jay Senter assembled the rhythm section at SunWest Studios for a 7 pm downbeat (start) but since he had planned on tracking without Helen, she was told to arrive until 9 pm. Reddy and Jeff Wald (her former husband) arrived thinking they were going to track when in fact Senter and the band had already recorded "I Am Woman" as well as "Don't Mess With A Woman". Wald and Reddy were furious in the control room and Senter was clearly not happy and voices were raised, however he did not quit the project. Helen put her voice on the track that Senter produced and she and Jeff left the studio since they only were interested in having this record quickly finished and released as a single by Capitol Records in conjunction with the film Stand and Be Counted. That release triggered a five-figured payment to Helen which at the time was sorely needed according to Wald.
Immediately after that guitarist Deasy played the riff on his 12 string electric guitar which became the signature sound for the song. Senter then asked friend and noted sax man, Jim Horn to write string and horn charts to be recorded the following week, while Senter went into the studio with Clydie King
, Vanetta Fields and Shirley Matthews (the Blossoms) and layered the background vocals which when coupled with the horn's created a broad sound that left the original Reddy vocal seem thin and frail.
Mauri Lathower, the head of A&R
, who brought Senter in to produce deflected Jeff Wald's pressure tactics and threats so Senter was able to complete what he believed to be a record having great social significance.
As the single was released, Wald – who had worked the phones for 18 hours a day when her first single was released, urging radio stations to play it – once more put his formidable promotional skills to use. He won gigs for Reddy - by now heavily pregnant with son Jordan - to sing on 19 TV talk and variety shows, which in turn triggered phone calls from female viewers to radio stations begging them to play it. "It was through television that we forced them to play it," said Reddy.
And as radio played it, women bought it, driving the song higher in the charts until it hit No.1 on December 9, 1972, the week Reddy gave birth. "It was my first No.1," said Reddy, "and it was the first No.1 Capitol Records had in five years. They were chuffed." "I am Woman" became the second Helen Reddy hit - after "I Don't Know How to Love Him
" - to peak at #2 in her native Australia. Overlooked in its original UK release, "I am Woman" was given a 1975 reissue to serve as followup to Reddy's #5 UK hit "Angie Baby
" but did not gain enough momentum to reach the UK Top 50.
In the year that Gloria Steinem
's Ms. magazine
was launched in the US and Cleo
in Australia, the song quickly captured the imagination of the burgeoning women's movement. National Organization for Women founder Betty Friedan
was later to write that in 1973, a gala entertainment night in Washington DC at the NOW annual convention closed with the playing of "I Am Woman". "Suddenly," she said, "women got out of their seats and started dancing around the hotel ballroom and joining hands in a circle that got larger and larger until maybe a thousand of us were dancing and singing, 'I am strong, I am invincible, I am woman.' It was a spontaneous, beautiful expression of the exhilaration we all felt in those years, women really moving as women."
To Reddy, the song's message reaches beyond feminism. "It's not just for women," she said. "It's a general empowerment song about feeling good about yourself, believing in yourself. When my former brother-in-law, a doctor, was going to medical school he played it every morning just to get him going."
The song brought greater exposure to Reddy, paving the way for a succession of hit singles. It also generated tremendous wealth, which the couple flaunted with a gaudy lifestyle of mansions, limousines, jewelry and speedboats. In her tell-all Hollywood book, You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again
, Julia Phillips
claimed that by the time the couple completed their acrimonious divorce in 1982 they had blown most of the $40 million they had made.
When Reddy’s performance of the song at the 1981 Miss World contest infuriated feminists, she responded: "Let them step forward and pay my rent and I'll stay home. What I'm doing is advertising a product I wouldn't use."
For some years Reddy tired of talking about the song, frustrated that out of her 35-year music career it was all the media remembered her for. In recent years a hint of revisionism has crept in, prompted by the discovery that her lyrics had been included in history textbooks in US schools.
Reddy, who says her singing career is over, last performed the song in October 2002, using it to conclude a world farewell concert in Edmonton. It was an emotional night. "I had no idea what the song was destined to become," she said. "If I'd known, I would have been far too intimidated to have written it.")
He claimed he was forced to take legal action against the singer in 1998 to recover a portion of songwriter royalties that had been withheld from him since 1972. He said: "I got some money out of it, but nothing like it would have been in the '70s when it was riding high."
Reddy disputes Burton's claims. "There was a buyout 25 or 30 years ago," she told Sunday Magazine. "Neither of us had any idea the song would become what it became. About 10 years ago he got in touch with me because he was in financial difficulties. I felt sorry for him and reinstated his songwriter royalties. His passport problems ended any hope he had of a career in the States and somehow that bitterness got transferred to me. I wish him well. I bear him no animosity."
Today he performs again in venues on the Queensland
Gold Coast
, where he lives. Sometimes he includes it in his set, raising a laugh from audiences by saying, "Here's a song I wrote in the '70s, with a twist." He sings it as, "She is woman, hear her roar".
beer ("with a gigantic amount of money," Reddy says) was rebuffed. "I'm not in the drug-dealing business," she says. "I don't care how much money they offer me."In 2006 Burger King
featured a lyrically adjusted version of "I am Woman" for a commercial titled "Manthem" extolling the virtues of large burgers over small "chick food" plates.
The song is heard briefly in the Simpsons episode Brother from the Same Planet
broadcast 4 February 1993. "I am Woman" was also featured in the 3 July 2008 broadcast of the CBS series Swingtown and the 2 September 2008 broadcast of The Secret Life of the American Teenager featured a rendition of the song by the school band.
The song is also used in a scene from the film My Best Friend's Wedding
. The main characters, played by Julia Roberts
, Cameron Diaz
and Dermot Mulroney
enter a kareoke bar and the song is heard playing loud, to which you hear a male's voice singing the lyrics. The audience then sees a young, drunk man singing with the microphone.
The style of the title has become iconic and has inspired other songs, such as 'I Am Cow' by The Arrogant Worms and poems including 'I Am Pigeon' by Flying Lemming.
On 11 September 2010 Matthew Wilkening of AOL Radio
"I am Woman" at #7 on the list of the 100 Worst Songs Ever.
for Bobbie Roy who like Reddy was on the Capitol Records roster; Roy's version of "I am Woman" reached #51 on the C&W chart
in February 1973. Also in 1973 "I am Woman" was covered by R&B singer Betty Wright
on her Hard to Stop album and also by Easy Listening
veteran Eydie Gorme
as a solo track on Feelin an album which was overall a duets project with Gorme's husband Steve Lawrence
who had starred in Stand Up & Be Counted.
In 1979 pianist Paul Weston
and vocalist Jo Stafford
recorded "I am Woman" in the guise of the untalented lounge
act Jonathan & Darlene Edwards: this version was released as a single which also featured a cover of the Bee Gees
' "Stayin' Alive
" with both songs delivered in classic "Jonathan & Darlene" mode with off notes, shifting tempo and style, and mismatched percussion.
The soundtrack for Sex and the City 2 features a performance of "I am Woman" as sung in film
by its stars Sarah Jessica Parker
, Kim Cattrall
, Kristin Davis
, and Cynthia Nixon
. in Sex and the City 2
.
"I am Woman" was also remade by Jessica Williams as a dance track featured in the 1999 film, Trick
and was covered by The Dan Band
on their CD The Dan Band Live
inspiring a one-hour music special by the group, Dan Finnerty & The Dan Band: I Am Woman.
"I am Woman" has been recorded by Sisters Roar to raise money for 3 charities; Breast Cancer, Jo's Cervical Cancer Trust & Star Support for Domestic Abuse. Organised by Sally Bee, the founder of the Precious Hearts Foundation, around 40 women recorded the song on the 16th July at Angel Studios in Islington. This version is being released on the 1st August 2011 and 100% of the money raised will go to the three chosen charities.
Helen Reddy
Helen Reddy , often referred to as "The Queen of 70s Pop", is an Australian-American singer and actress. In the 1970s, she enjoyed international success, especially in the United States, where she placed fifteen singles in the Top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100. Six of those 15 songs made the Top 10...
and singer/songwriter/guitarist Ray Burton and performed by Reddy. Released in its most well-known version in 1970, the song became an enduring anthem for the women’s liberation movement.
Success
"I am Woman" reached #1 on the BillboardBillboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
charts in December 1972. The song was the first #1 hit on the Billboard chart by an Australian-born artist and the first Australian-penned song to win a Grammy Award
Grammy Award
A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...
(in her acceptance speech for Best Female Performance, Reddy thanked "God, because She makes everything possible"). It sold more than a million copies, and has been played more than a million times on US radio, and helped propel Reddy to a successful pop career which made her more than $40 million in America. As an example of the endurance of the song, it was played at the 2010 Academy Awards as the exit music for Kathryn Bigelow after she won the Best Director Oscar for "The Hurt Locker," the first time a woman won the award.
"I am Woman" was added to the National Film and Sound Archive
National Film and Sound Archive
The National Film and Sound Archive is Australia’s audiovisual archive, responsible for developing, preserving, maintaining, promoting and providing access to a national collection of audiovisual materials and related items...
's Sounds of Australia Registry in 2009.
Inspiration for the song
After securing a recording contract in 1971 with Capitol RecordsCapitol Records
Capitol Records is a major United States based record label, formerly located in Los Angeles, but operating in New York City as part of Capitol Music Group. Its former headquarters building, the Capitol Tower, is a major landmark near the corner of Hollywood and Vine...
that yielded the hit "I Don't Know How to Love Him
I Don't Know How to Love Him
"I Don't Know How to Love Him" is a song from the 1970 rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice , a torch ballad sung by the character of Mary Magdalene who in Jesus Christ Superstar is presented as bearing an unrequited love for the title character...
", Reddy – then living in Los Angeles—was asked for an album. She gave the label a set of 10 jazz-tinged pop songs. Nestled among the Leon Russell
Leon Russell
Claude Russell Bridges , known professionally as Leon Russell, is an American musician and songwriter, who has recorded as a session musician, sideman, and maintained a solo career in music....
, Graham Nash
Graham Nash
Graham William Nash, OBE is an English singer-songwriter known for his light tenor vocals and for his songwriting contributions with the British pop group The Hollies, and with the folk-rock band Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Nash is a photography collector and a published photographer...
and Van Morrison
Van Morrison
Van Morrison, OBE is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician. His live performances at their best are regarded as transcendental and inspired; while some of his recordings, such as the studio albums Astral Weeks and Moondance, and the live album It's Too Late to Stop Now, are widely...
songs were two Reddy originals. "I Am Woman" was one of them.
The composition was the result of Reddy’s search for a song that would express her growing passion for female empowerment. In a 2003 interview in Australia’s Sunday Magazine (published with the Sunday Herald Sun
Herald Sun
The Herald Sun is a morning tabloid newspaper based in Melbourne, Australia. It is published by The Herald and Weekly Times, a subsidiary of News Limited, itself a subsidiary of News Corporation. It is available for purchase throughout Melbourne, Regional Victoria, Tasmania, the Australian Capital...
and Sunday Telegraph), she explained:
Reddy’s own long years on stage had also fueled her contempt for men who belittled women, she said. "Women have always been objectified in showbiz. I'd be the opening act for a comic and as I was leaving the stage he'd say, 'Yeah, take your clothes off and wait for me in the dressing room, I'll be right there'. It was demeaning and humiliating for any woman to have that happen publicly."
Reddy credits the song as having supernatural inspiration. She said:
"I remember lying in bed one night and the words, 'I am strong, I am invincible, I am woman', kept going over and over in my head. That part I consider to be divinely inspired. I had been chosen to get a message across." Pressed on who had chosen her, she replied: "The universe."
The next day she wrote the lyric and handed it to Australian guitarist Ray Burton to put it to music.
Collaboration with Ray Burton
Burton, 26 at the time and playing in Los Angeles with Australian rock band The Executives (and later a member of Ayer's RockAyers Rock (band)
Ayers Rock was a jazz fusion/progressive rock band from Melbourne, Australia. The group formed in 1973, and included many well-travelled rock performers; drummer Mark Kennedy had previously played in Spectrum, and played on sessions for King Harvest and Friends...
), was a friend who had often worked with Reddy in live venues across Australia. He has a different recollection of the song's beginning. He told Sunday Magazine he spoke to Reddy after she attended a series of regular women's meetings at which he says they would "sit around and whine about their boyfriends".
Reddy insists Burton didn't change a word of the lyrics. Yet she admits she had no expectations for the track. More than a year later, however, the song was picked to run behind the opening credits of Stand Up And Be Counted, a lightweight Hollywood women's lib comedy starring Jacqueline Bisset
Jacqueline Bisset
Jacqueline Bisset is an English actress. She has been nominated for four Golden Globe Awards and an Emmy Award. She is known for her roles in the films Bullitt , Airport , The Deep , Class , and the TV series Nip/Tuck in 2006...
, Loretta Swit
Loretta Swit
Loretta Swit is an American stage and television actress known for her character roles. Swit is best-known for her portrayal of Major Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan on M*A*S*H.-Early life:...
and Steve Lawrence
Steve Lawrence
Steve Lawrence is an American singer and actor, perhaps best known as a member of a duo with his wife Eydie Gormé, billed as "Steve and Eydie"...
. On the strength of this, Capitol decided to release the song as a single. Because in its initial form I Am Woman ran to little more than two minutes, Reddy was asked to write an additional verse and chorus. The extra verse inserted the song's only reference to men ("Until I make my brother understand"). More importantly, the new version would add significant punch to a song that, in its initial form, was simple, bouncy and unconfronting.
The recording session
Reddy told Sunday Magazine she remembered nothing of the second recording session and did not know which musicians played on the song.In fact, she had some of the best LA session musician
Session musician
Session musicians are instrumental and vocal performers, musicians, who are available to work with others at live performances or recording sessions. Usually such musicians are not permanent members of a musical ensemble and often do not achieve fame in their own right as soloists or bandleaders...
s backing her:
- Mike Deasy, whose CV includes sessions with The Beach BoysThe Beach BoysThe Beach Boys are an American rock band, formed in 1961 in Hawthorne, California. The group was initially composed of brothers Brian, Dennis and Carl Wilson, their cousin Mike Love, and friend Al Jardine. Managed by the Wilsons' father Murry, The Beach Boys signed to Capitol Records in 1962...
, Elvis PresleyElvis PresleyElvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....
, Barbra StreisandBarbra StreisandBarbra Joan Streisand is an American singer, actress, film producer and director. She has won two Academy Awards, eight Grammy Awards, four Emmy Awards, a Special Tony Award, an American Film Institute award, a Peabody Award, and is one of the few entertainers who have won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy,...
, The 5th Dimension and Frank Sinatra, played guitar. - Jim HornJim HornJim Horn is an American saxophonist and woodwind player. He was born in Los Angeles, and after replacing saxophonist Steve Douglas in 1959, he toured with member Duane Eddy for five years, playing sax and flute on the road, and in the recording studio...
, legendary saxman, played with The Beatles and the Rolling Stones and who also played on The Righteous BrothersThe Righteous BrothersThe Righteous Brothers were the musical duo of Bill Medley and Bobby Hatfield. They recorded from 1963 through 1975, and continued to perform until Hatfield's death in 2003...
' "You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin'"You've Lost That Lovin' Feelin" is a 1964 song by The Righteous Brothers which became a number-one hit single in the United States and the United Kingdom the following year. In 1999, the performing-rights organization Broadcast Music, Inc. ranked the song as having had more radio and television...
," was on woodwind and arranged the strings and horns. - Jim GordonJim Gordon (musician)James Beck "Jim" Gordon is an American recording artist, musician and songwriter. The Grammy Award winner was one of the most requested session drummers in the late 1960s and 1970s, recording albums with many well-known musicians of the time, and was the drummer in the blues-rock supergroup Derek...
, whose credits included The Beach BoysThe Beach BoysThe Beach Boys are an American rock band, formed in 1961 in Hawthorne, California. The group was initially composed of brothers Brian, Dennis and Carl Wilson, their cousin Mike Love, and friend Al Jardine. Managed by the Wilsons' father Murry, The Beach Boys signed to Capitol Records in 1962...
' Pet SoundsPet SoundsPet Sounds is the eleventh studio album by the American rock band The Beach Boys, released May 16, 1966, on Capitol Records. It has since been recognized as one of the most influential records in the history of popular music and one of the best albums of the 1960s, including songs such as "Wouldn't...
and John LennonJohn LennonJohn Winston Lennon, MBE was an English musician and singer-songwriter who rose to worldwide fame as one of the founding members of The Beatles, one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music...
's "ImagineImagine (song)"Imagine" is a song written and performed by the English musician John Lennon. It is the opening track on his album Imagine, released in 1971...
", was on drums. Jim was also the drummer in Derek and the Dominoes and a co-writer of "LaylaLayla"Layla" is a song written by Eric Clapton and Jim Gordon, originally released by their blues-rock band, Derek and the Dominos, as the thirteenth track from their album Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs...
". - Michael Melvoin, who played with The MonkeesThe MonkeesThe Monkees are an American pop rock group. Assembled in Los Angeles in 1966 by Robert "Bob" Rafelson and Bert Schneider for the American television series The Monkees, which aired from 1966 to 1968, the musical acting quartet was composed of Americans Micky Dolenz, Michael Nesmith and Peter Tork,...
, played piano. - Leland SklarLeland SklarLeland "Lee" Bruce Sklar is an American musician, singer-songwriter and film score composer. A prominent bass guitarist, Sklar has contributed to thousands of albums as a session musician...
, extraordinary bass player. Known for his brilliant work with James TaylorJames TaylorJames Vernon Taylor is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. A five-time Grammy Award winner, Taylor was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2000....
and numerous other major recording artists. - Dick "Slide" HydeDick HydeRichard Elde Hyde is an American former relief pitcher in professional baseball who worked in the Major Leagues for six seasons from to for the Washington Senators and Baltimore Orioles...
, a veteran of sessions with Glen CampbellGlen CampbellGlen Travis Campbell is an American country music singer, guitarist, television host and occasional actor. He is best known for a series of hits in the 1960s and 1970s, as well as for hosting a variety show called The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour on CBS television.During his 50 years in show...
and BreadBread (band)Bread was a rock band from Los Angeles, California. They placed 13 songs on the Billboard Hot 100 chart between 1970 and 1977 and were a prime example of what later was labeled soft rock....
, played trombone. - Don MenzaDon MenzaDon Menza is an American saxophonist, arranger, composer, session musician, and jazz educator noted for his many contributions to American jazz and big band music. -Early years:...
, a longtime Buddy RichBuddy RichBernard "Buddy" Rich was an American jazz drummer and bandleader. Rich was billed as "the world's greatest drummer" and was known for his virtuosic technique, power, groove, and speed.-Early life:...
band member, played sax. - Kathy Deasy, whose credits included Johnny RiversJohnny RiversJohnny Rivers is an American rock and roll singer, songwriter, guitarist, and record producer. His styles include folk songs, blues, and revivals of old-time rock 'n' roll songs and some original material...
, Kenny LogginsKenny LogginsDuring the next decade, Loggins recorded so many successful songs for film soundtracks that he was referred to as, King of the Movie Soundtrack.He began with "I'm Alright" , "Mr. Night", and "Lead the Way" from Caddyshack...
and The ByrdsThe ByrdsThe Byrds were an American rock band, formed in Los Angeles, California in 1964. The band underwent multiple line-up changes throughout its existence, with frontman Roger McGuinn remaining the sole consistent member until the group disbanded in 1973...
, provided backup vocals.
The tracking session for "I Am Woman" was extremely difficult. Producer Jay Senter assembled the rhythm section at SunWest Studios for a 7 pm downbeat (start) but since he had planned on tracking without Helen, she was told to arrive until 9 pm. Reddy and Jeff Wald (her former husband) arrived thinking they were going to track when in fact Senter and the band had already recorded "I Am Woman" as well as "Don't Mess With A Woman". Wald and Reddy were furious in the control room and Senter was clearly not happy and voices were raised, however he did not quit the project. Helen put her voice on the track that Senter produced and she and Jeff left the studio since they only were interested in having this record quickly finished and released as a single by Capitol Records in conjunction with the film Stand and Be Counted. That release triggered a five-figured payment to Helen which at the time was sorely needed according to Wald.
Immediately after that guitarist Deasy played the riff on his 12 string electric guitar which became the signature sound for the song. Senter then asked friend and noted sax man, Jim Horn to write string and horn charts to be recorded the following week, while Senter went into the studio with Clydie King
Clydie King
Clydie Crittendon is an American singer, best known for her session work as a backing vocalist....
, Vanetta Fields and Shirley Matthews (the Blossoms) and layered the background vocals which when coupled with the horn's created a broad sound that left the original Reddy vocal seem thin and frail.
Mauri Lathower, the head of A&R
A&R
Artists and repertoire is the division of a record label that is responsible for talent scouting and overseeing the artistic development of recording artists. It also acts as a liaison between artists and the record label.- Finding talent :...
, who brought Senter in to produce deflected Jeff Wald's pressure tactics and threats so Senter was able to complete what he believed to be a record having great social significance.
The song’s impact
And as radio played it, women bought it, driving the song higher in the charts until it hit No.1 on December 9, 1972, the week Reddy gave birth. "It was my first No.1," said Reddy, "and it was the first No.1 Capitol Records had in five years. They were chuffed." "I am Woman" became the second Helen Reddy hit - after "I Don't Know How to Love Him
I Don't Know How to Love Him
"I Don't Know How to Love Him" is a song from the 1970 rock opera Jesus Christ Superstar written by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice , a torch ballad sung by the character of Mary Magdalene who in Jesus Christ Superstar is presented as bearing an unrequited love for the title character...
" - to peak at #2 in her native Australia. Overlooked in its original UK release, "I am Woman" was given a 1975 reissue to serve as followup to Reddy's #5 UK hit "Angie Baby
Angie Baby
"Angie Baby" is a popular song that was written by American Alan O'Day, and became a hit for Australian singer Helen Reddy. The song reached #1 on the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 chart at the end of December of 1974 and became one of Reddy's biggest-selling singles. The song also topped the U.S...
" but did not gain enough momentum to reach the UK Top 50.
In the year that Gloria Steinem
Gloria Steinem
Gloria Marie Steinem is an American feminist, journalist, and social and political activist who became nationally recognized as a leader of, and media spokeswoman for, the women's liberation movement in the late 1960s and 1970s...
's Ms. magazine
Ms. magazine
Ms. is an American feminist magazine co-founded by American feminist and activist Gloria Steinem and founding editor Letty Cottin Pogrebin together with founding editors Patricia Carbine, Joanne Edgar, Nina Finkelstein, and Mary Peacock, that first appeared in 1971 as an insert in New York magazine...
was launched in the US and Cleo
Cleo (magazine)
CLEO is an Australian, New Zealand, South African, Malaysian, Singaporean, Thailand and Indonesian women's magazine.Aimed at an older audience than the teenage-focused Dolly, the magazine is known for its CLEO Bachelor of the Year award....
in Australia, the song quickly captured the imagination of the burgeoning women's movement. National Organization for Women founder Betty Friedan
Betty Friedan
Betty Friedan was an American writer, activist, and feminist.A leading figure in the Women's Movement in the United States, her 1963 book The Feminine Mystique is often credited with sparking the "second wave" of American feminism in the twentieth century...
was later to write that in 1973, a gala entertainment night in Washington DC at the NOW annual convention closed with the playing of "I Am Woman". "Suddenly," she said, "women got out of their seats and started dancing around the hotel ballroom and joining hands in a circle that got larger and larger until maybe a thousand of us were dancing and singing, 'I am strong, I am invincible, I am woman.' It was a spontaneous, beautiful expression of the exhilaration we all felt in those years, women really moving as women."
The song brought greater exposure to Reddy, paving the way for a succession of hit singles. It also generated tremendous wealth, which the couple flaunted with a gaudy lifestyle of mansions, limousines, jewelry and speedboats. In her tell-all Hollywood book, You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again
You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again
You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again is an autobiography by Julia Phillips, detailing her career as a film producer and disclosing the power games and debauchery of New Hollywood in the 1970s and 1980s...
, Julia Phillips
Julia Phillips
Julia Phillips was a film producer and author. She is remembered for being the first woman to win an Academy Award as a film's producer, and for a best selling tell-all memoir.-Early life:...
claimed that by the time the couple completed their acrimonious divorce in 1982 they had blown most of the $40 million they had made.
When Reddy’s performance of the song at the 1981 Miss World contest infuriated feminists, she responded: "Let them step forward and pay my rent and I'll stay home. What I'm doing is advertising a product I wouldn't use."
For some years Reddy tired of talking about the song, frustrated that out of her 35-year music career it was all the media remembered her for. In recent years a hint of revisionism has crept in, prompted by the discovery that her lyrics had been included in history textbooks in US schools.
Reddy, who says her singing career is over, last performed the song in October 2002, using it to conclude a world farewell concert in Edmonton. It was an emotional night. "I had no idea what the song was destined to become," she said. "If I'd known, I would have been far too intimidated to have written it.")
Fallout with Burton
Expelled from the US in 1971 because of work-permit problems, Ray Burton was forced to watch the song's stellar rise in the US from a distance. Things became so bad he was forced to live on unemployment benefits. "It could have been the launching pad for a writing and singing career," he said. "They took advantage of the fact I wasn't there."He claimed he was forced to take legal action against the singer in 1998 to recover a portion of songwriter royalties that had been withheld from him since 1972. He said: "I got some money out of it, but nothing like it would have been in the '70s when it was riding high."
Reddy disputes Burton's claims. "There was a buyout 25 or 30 years ago," she told Sunday Magazine. "Neither of us had any idea the song would become what it became. About 10 years ago he got in touch with me because he was in financial difficulties. I felt sorry for him and reinstated his songwriter royalties. His passport problems ended any hope he had of a career in the States and somehow that bitterness got transferred to me. I wish him well. I bear him no animosity."
Today he performs again in venues on the Queensland
Queensland
Queensland is a state of Australia, occupying the north-eastern section of the mainland continent. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Australia and New South Wales to the west, south-west and south respectively. To the east, Queensland is bordered by the Coral Sea and Pacific Ocean...
Gold Coast
Gold Coast, Queensland
Gold Coast is a coastal city of Australia located in South East Queensland, 94km south of the state capital Brisbane. With a population approximately 540,000 in 2010, it is the second most populous city in the state, the sixth most populous city in the country, and also the most populous...
, where he lives. Sometimes he includes it in his set, raising a laugh from audiences by saying, "Here's a song I wrote in the '70s, with a twist." He sings it as, "She is woman, hear her roar".
Trivia
"I am Woman" has been used in TV commercials for a sports footwear chain and a female-oriented cable TV network, but a pitch about 2003 by CoorsCoors Brewing Company
The Coors Brewing Company is a regional division of the world's fifth-largest brewing company, the Canadian Molson Coors Brewing Company and is the third-largest brewer in the United States...
beer ("with a gigantic amount of money," Reddy says) was rebuffed. "I'm not in the drug-dealing business," she says. "I don't care how much money they offer me."In 2006 Burger King
Burger King
Burger King, often abbreviated as BK, is a global chain of hamburger fast food restaurants headquartered in unincorporated Miami-Dade County, Florida, United States. The company began in 1953 as Insta-Burger King, a Jacksonville, Florida-based restaurant chain...
featured a lyrically adjusted version of "I am Woman" for a commercial titled "Manthem" extolling the virtues of large burgers over small "chick food" plates.
The song is heard briefly in the Simpsons episode Brother from the Same Planet
Brother from the Same Planet
"Brother from the Same Planet" is the fourteenth episode of The Simpsons fourth season. After Homer is late to pick up Bart from soccer practice, Bart turns to the program The Bigger Brothers, and is assigned a man named Tom. Homer gets himself a little brother named Pepe. Homer and Tom fight, and...
broadcast 4 February 1993. "I am Woman" was also featured in the 3 July 2008 broadcast of the CBS series Swingtown and the 2 September 2008 broadcast of The Secret Life of the American Teenager featured a rendition of the song by the school band.
The song is also used in a scene from the film My Best Friend's Wedding
My Best Friend's Wedding
My Best Friend's Wedding is a 1997 romantic comedy film directed by P. J. Hogan. It stars Julia Roberts, Cameron Diaz, Dermot Mulroney, Rupert Everett, and Philip Bosco.The film received mostly positive reviews from critics...
. The main characters, played by Julia Roberts
Julia Roberts
Julia Fiona Roberts is an American actress. She became a Hollywood star after headlining the romantic comedy Pretty Woman , which grossed $464 million worldwide...
, Cameron Diaz
Cameron Diaz
Cameron Michelle Diaz is an American actress and former model. She became famous during the 1990s with roles in the movies The Mask, My Best Friend's Wedding, and There's Something About Mary. Other high-profile credits include the two Charlie's Angels films, voicing the character Princess Fiona...
and Dermot Mulroney
Dermot Mulroney
-Early life:Mulroney was born in Alexandria, Virginia, the son of Ellen, a housewife and amateur actress originally from Manchester, Iowa, and Michael Mulroney, a law professor at Villanova University School of Law, originally from Elkader, Iowa. He has a sister, Moira, and three brothers, Conor,...
enter a kareoke bar and the song is heard playing loud, to which you hear a male's voice singing the lyrics. The audience then sees a young, drunk man singing with the microphone.
The style of the title has become iconic and has inspired other songs, such as 'I Am Cow' by The Arrogant Worms and poems including 'I Am Pigeon' by Flying Lemming.
On 11 September 2010 Matthew Wilkening of AOL Radio
AOL Radio
AOL Radio powered by Slacker, , is an online radio service available only in the United States.- Roots :...
"I am Woman" at #7 on the list of the 100 Worst Songs Ever.
Other versions
"I am Woman" was a minor C&W hitCountry music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
for Bobbie Roy who like Reddy was on the Capitol Records roster; Roy's version of "I am Woman" reached #51 on the C&W chart
Hot Country Songs
Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by Billboard magazine in the United States.This 60-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly mostly by airplay and occasionally commercial sales...
in February 1973. Also in 1973 "I am Woman" was covered by R&B singer Betty Wright
Betty Wright
Bessie Regina Norris, better known by her stage name, Betty Wright , is a Grammy winning Miami-based soul and R&B singer-songwriter, who won fame in the 1970s with hits such as "Clean Up Woman" and "Tonight Is the Night"...
on her Hard to Stop album and also by Easy Listening
Easy listening
Easy listening is a broad style of popular music and radio format that emerged in the 1950s, evolving out of big band music, and related to MOR music as played on many AM radio stations. It encompasses the exotica, beautiful music, light music, lounge music, ambient music, and space age pop genres...
veteran Eydie Gorme
Eydie Gormé
Eydie Gormé is an American singer, specializing, with her husband, Steve Lawrence, in traditional pop music, in the form of ballads and breezy swing. She has earned numerous awards, including the Grammy and the Emmy...
as a solo track on Feelin an album which was overall a duets project with Gorme's husband Steve Lawrence
Steve Lawrence
Steve Lawrence is an American singer and actor, perhaps best known as a member of a duo with his wife Eydie Gormé, billed as "Steve and Eydie"...
who had starred in Stand Up & Be Counted.
In 1979 pianist Paul Weston
Paul Weston
Paul Weston was an American pianist, arranger, composer and conductor. Weston was born Paul Wetstein in Springfield, Massachusetts...
and vocalist Jo Stafford
Jo Stafford
Jo Elizabeth Stafford was an American singer of traditional pop music and jazz standards and occasional actress whose career ran from the late 1930s to the early 1960s...
recorded "I am Woman" in the guise of the untalented lounge
Lounge music
Lounge music is a retrospective description of music popular in the 1950s and 1960s. It is a type of mood music meant to evoke in the listeners the feeling of being in a place — a jungle, an island paradise, outer space, et cetera — other than where they are listening to it...
act Jonathan & Darlene Edwards: this version was released as a single which also featured a cover of the Bee Gees
Bee Gees
The Bee Gees are a musical group that originally comprised three brothers: Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb. The trio was successful for most of their 40-plus years of recording music, but they had two distinct periods of exceptional success: as a pop act in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and as a...
' "Stayin' Alive
Stayin' Alive
"Stayin' Alive" is a song by the pop group Bee Gees from the Saturday Night Fever motion picture soundtrack. The song was written by the Bee Gees and produced by the Bee Gees, Albhy Galuten and Karl Richardson. It was released on 13 December 1977, as the second single from the Saturday Night Fever...
" with both songs delivered in classic "Jonathan & Darlene" mode with off notes, shifting tempo and style, and mismatched percussion.
The soundtrack for Sex and the City 2 features a performance of "I am Woman" as sung in film
Sex and the City 2
Sex and the City 2 is a 2010 American romantic comedy film directed by Michael Patrick King. It is the sequel to the 2008 film Sex and the City, which is based on the HBO TV series of the same name....
by its stars Sarah Jessica Parker
Sarah Jessica Parker
Sarah Jessica Parker is an American film, television, and theater actress and producer.She is best known for her leading role as Carrie Bradshaw on the HBO television series Sex and the City , for which she won four Golden Globe Awards, three Screen Actors Guild Awards, and two Emmy Awards...
, Kim Cattrall
Kim Cattrall
Kim Victoria Cattrall is an English actress. She is known for her role as Samantha Jones in the HBO comedy/romance series Sex and the City, and for her leading roles in the 1980s films Police Academy, Big Trouble in Little China, Mannequin, and Porky's...
, Kristin Davis
Kristin Davis
Kristin Landen Davis is an American actress.She first rose to prominence and achieved fame for playing the role of Charlotte York Goldenblatt on HBO's Sex and the City. She has achieved success appearing in roles in film and television.-Early life and education:Davis was born in Boulder, Colorado...
, and Cynthia Nixon
Cynthia Nixon
Cynthia Ellen Nixon is an American actress, known for her portrayal of Miranda Hobbes in the HBO series Sex and the City . She has received two Screen Actors Guild Awards, two Emmy Awards, a Tony Award, and a Grammy Award....
. in Sex and the City 2
Sex and the City 2
Sex and the City 2 is a 2010 American romantic comedy film directed by Michael Patrick King. It is the sequel to the 2008 film Sex and the City, which is based on the HBO TV series of the same name....
.
"I am Woman" was also remade by Jessica Williams as a dance track featured in the 1999 film, Trick
Trick (film)
Trick is a 1999 gay-themed romantic comedy film directed by Jim Fall. Trick appeared at the Sundance and Berlin film festivals in 1999. Filming was completed in less than three weeks in August 1998.-Plot:...
and was covered by The Dan Band
The Dan Band
The Dan Band is a comedy band from Los Angeles, California, created by actor/comedian Dan Finnerty.The band is well known for its covers of originally female-performed pop songs, with added obscenities and swearing...
on their CD The Dan Band Live
The Dan Band Live
The Dan Band Live is the first album released by The Dan Band. It includes humorous covers of various pop songs.-Track listing:#"Free Your Mind/I Am Woman"#"Gloria/Mickey"#"Abba Medley"#"Shoop/Whatta Man/Never Gonna Get It"...
inspiring a one-hour music special by the group, Dan Finnerty & The Dan Band: I Am Woman.
"I am Woman" has been recorded by Sisters Roar to raise money for 3 charities; Breast Cancer, Jo's Cervical Cancer Trust & Star Support for Domestic Abuse. Organised by Sally Bee, the founder of the Precious Hearts Foundation, around 40 women recorded the song on the 16th July at Angel Studios in Islington. This version is being released on the 1st August 2011 and 100% of the money raised will go to the three chosen charities.
External links
- Ray Burton website
- Poems by Flying Lemming
- Listen to an excerpt of 'I am Woman' on australianscreen online
- 'I am Woman' was added to the National Film and Sound Archive's Sounds of Australia Registry in 2009