As I've noted a time or two (or three or four) here on Friday Night Jukebox, the tunes I feature here each week are chosen years in advance of their posting, and once again this week we have one that just happened to oddly coincide with recent news events--that being the Supreme Court's decision earlier this month to allow the Texas ban on abortions to stand while I picked perhaps the greatest women's anthem ever performed some years ago to be this week's song. Of course, as far off the deep end as the Supreme Court has gone during the Roberts' years, I probably shouldn't be surprised....
Helen Reddy was born into a show biz family in Melbourne, Australia in 1941. After winning a talent contest in her native Australia in 1966 with a grand prize being the chance to record a single for Mercury Records, Reddy immigrated to America only to find out the grand prize wasn't so grand--it was only to be an audition for the chance, and they eventually decided they did not want her to record for them. Reddy--despite being a single mom--decided to stay and pursue her dream anyway. She got her chance in 1971 when she released her first single, which was a top twenty hit in Canada, and led to her second single which kickstarted her success. Reddy had a number of hits, won a Grammy Award, and was inducted into Australia's music hall of fame She retired in 2002 and after her retirement earned a degree in hypnotherapy. In 2011 she returned to performing and continued through 2017. For her career Reddy released eighteen studio albums (with six hitting the top twenty), and 31 singles (with three hitting #1 and another three reaching the top ten). Ms. Reddy was diagnosed with dementia in 2015, but still participated in the 2017 Women's March. Sadly, she passed away last year at the age of seventy-eight.
"I Am Woman" was originally released on Reddy's debut album, I Don't Know How to Love Him in 1971. It was later re-recorded with an additional verse and chorus and became a hit single on Reddy's third album, I Am Woman. The second version reached #1 (with a bullet!) on the Billboard Hot 100, and its album hit #14 on the Billboard 200.
I don't think it can be overstated what an important cultural reference point "I Am Woman" was to a still relatively nascent women's movement here in America. As a man who has never suffered the discrimination that women have in America's history, I am loathe to imagine what this song meant to the women of the time (and the women of today), but I hope it spoke to the empowerment they were (and are) seeking. From a strictly musical standpoint, the song is incredibly catchy and Reddy's vocals capture the strength, defiance, and joy that the song's lyrics demonstrate. In the end, what stands out most for me is not only did Reddy create an anthem (which isn't often done), but she created one that appeals to half the world's population--and spoke to their common history and their hope for the actualization of their fight to be treated as equals.
Lyric Sheet: "I am woman hear me roar/In numbers too big to ignore/And I know too much to go back and pretend..."
Enjoy:
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Peace,
emaycee
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