For this month’s version of The Original Vs. The Cover we tackle “American Woman” by The Guess Who vs Lenny Kravitz’s version. The song was originally released in 1969 by Canadian band The Guess Who. The song went to #1 and became such a popular song in the U.S. mainly because of it’s title.
That is strange because the song is not Pro-American, but it isn’t really Anti-American either. It is a small part Anti-War song (one line says “I don’t need your war machine”) and large part bashing of American women. Bashing is harsh, it was more like American women were too much for lyricist Burton Cummings. Here is what he said about the song to the Toronto Star back in 2014…
“It 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.”
The article goes on to describe how the song developed and it seems like it was by pure chance…
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2 Loud 2 Old Music 