The Guess Who’s classic song reaches milestone
American Woman was first song by a Canadian band to reach No. 1 on Billboard charts
The Guess Who’s classic song, American Woman, marks an important Canadian music milestone this year as it turns
50 years old. And guitarist Randy Bachman says the half century since the iconic tune made the Winnipeg band the first Canadian rock outfit to earn a No. 1 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 doesn’t feel so long ago
“No, it feels more like, I don’t know, 10 years?” said Bachman, 76, who co-wrote the song with singer Burton Cummings, bassist Jim Kale and drummer Garry Peterson.
“It feels like it’s in the past obviously, but it sure doesn’t seem like five decades.”
American Woman, which has been covered by the likes of Lenny Kravitz and Kelly Clarkson, officially celebrates its 50th anniversary on May 9, which is the date it first appeared in the No. 1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 and stayed there for three weeks in 1970.
We caught up with Bachman from his home in Victoria, B.C., where he was hunkered down with his son Tal, to discuss the song, which is being celebrated with a limited-edition reissue of the LP of the same name, on translucent blue vinyl.
Q People assumed American Woman was an antiwar song due to the lyrics like “I don’t need your war machines,” but was it?
A Kind of a mild war protest song, ’cause it was literally one line. American Woman was not the woman on the street, the American Woman to us was the Statue of Liberty. As Canadians, this was the whole thing America stood for was 250 years of war.
Q So was it really more about American woman, stay away from me, as the opening lyric says?
A We would go and play an American town at that time and there (were) no guys in any town from Iowa to Texas to California between 18 and 35 (because of the Vietnam War); they were all gone. So we’d pull into town, we were in our 20s, and it was like Stepford Wives. We were like the Stepford Guys. No matter how ugly we were or how fat we were, we were like guys between 18 and 35, and all the women were like nuts.
Q Where was it written?
A We were (playing) a curling rink in Kitchener-waterloo, Ont. It’s now a hardware store. And somewhere in the paint section, there’s a little (plaque) on the floor saying, “American Woman was written here.” Somebody told me that. I haven’t seen it. My recollection is obviously different than Burton’s. He was out of the building when I started that riff on stage. I had broken a string on my guitar and obviously our set stopped. I had to change my own string. And this was a threehour dance. And as I changed my string, I was on my knees in the dark, I started to tune and started to play that riff and everybody’s heads snapped around and looked at me and I thought, “Oh, my God. I can’t let this go.”
Q And Burton?
A I remember him coming on stage and I said, “Play something!” And he played a piano solo and then a flute solo and then a harmonica solo. And I yelled out, “Sing something! and the first thing he sang was “American woman, stay away from me!” There was this electricity on stage.
Q And then the other lyrics followed?
A The next day we tried to do it again. I forgot the song. Burton apparently found a guy with a cassette (of it). I re-created the song again and then Burton came and said, “How about some other lyrics? How about if I say war machine?” And I go, “Great!” “How about if I say ghetto scene?” I say, “Great!” ’Cause we grew up in the poor end of Winnipeg but we had no idea what a ghetto scene was until we went to the depths of New York or Mobile, Ala., where people were living in a shed in filth and making a dollar a day for picking bales of cotton ... And then the “Coloured lights that hypnotize” was Broadway.
Q Where were you when you found out it went to No. 1?
A We were in some little hotel room. I got this (message), it said, “Congratulations you’re
No. 1!” And I called the whole band together in my room and I read it and there were like two beds in a room. We all stood on a bed in a circle, the four of us, held hands, and jumped up and down on the bed saying, “We’re No. 1! We’re No. 1!” The bed caved in. We jumped over to the next bed — that caved in.
It (the song American Woman) feels like it’s in the past obviously, but it sure doesn’t seem like five decades.
Q And you left the band shortly after?
A Then I started to have gallbladder attacks. I was going to the hospital for two solid weeks with pain and blood and everything. And finally I said, “I’ve got to go home. I don’t know if I’m dying.” I was emotionally, physically and spiritually ill and sick and we’d been on the road for eight years, barely breaking even. I had a son, for whom I was not at home when he was born. I had a beautiful wife who I never saw. And my second child was on the way. I knew I had a gig 10 to 12 days later and that was the Fillmore East. I said to the doctor back in Winnipeg, “I’ve got to go play this gig, I got to go to New York.” And he said, “OK, here’s all you can eat. Sugar free Jell-o, skim milk and soda crackers. You can’t eat anything that’s too fat or too sugary. You’ve got 21 gallstones. You’re going to have another attack.” And that (performance) was my last night with The Guess Who.