Today’s classic 1970 song of the day was probably the hardest-rocking song on the charts at the time. We’re talking “American Woman” by the Guess Who, which was released in March of 1970. It hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 on May 9 and stayed there for three weeks. It also hit #1 on the Cash Box Top 100 and, not surprisingly, Canada’s RPM Singles Chart. Billboard ranked it the #3 song for all of 1970.
The Guess Who hail from Canada and many thought that “American Woman” was a blistering critique of their southern neighbor in the Vietnam War era. Lead singer Burton Cummings, who wrote the song’s lyrics, dissuades that notion. Here’s what he says the song was about:
“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.”
Fellow Guess Whovian Randy Bachman has a different take on “American Woman,” calling it an “anti-war protest song.” Here’s his recollection:
“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”
Whatever the lyrics really mean, the song came about when guitarist Randy Bachman broke a string onstage and, after replacing it, was tuning up. He started playing a new riff just to warm up. His bandmates joined in for an impromptu jam session, with Burton Cummings improvising the lyrics. That all would been lost to prosperity, however, save for a kid in the audience making a bootleg recording with his portable tape recorder. Afterwards, the band asked him for the tape and transcribed what they’d played. The result of that jam, with a little lyrical refinement, was the song we all know as “American Woman.” It’s credited to all four members of the band.
If you bought the single back in 1970 and flipped it over, you came across another treasure in the form of the B-side “No Sugar Tonight.” Personally, I liked this one even better than the A-side; it’s more melodic and has a slightly softer edge. If you listen to “No Sugar Tonight” on the album American Woman, it’s paired with a separate “New Mother Nature” section that makes it even better; that section was excised from the single.
“American Woman” was the fifth big hit for the Guess Who, following “These Eyes” (#6), “Laughing” (#10), “Undun” (#22), and “No Time” (#5), all released in 1969. Randy Bachman left the band in May 1970 while “American Woman” was peaking on the charts. The rest of the band carried on, had a few more hits (“Hand Me Down World” and “Share the Land”), then broke up in 1975.
Randy Bachman went on to form the group Bachman-Turner Overdrive, which had a number of hits (“Let It Ride,” “Takin’ Care of Business,” “Roll On Down the Highway,” and that stuttering single, “You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet”). Burton Cummings had a successful solo career, capped by the single “Stand Tall” in 1976. Bachman and Turner later later hooked up to perform as a duo, which they still do today.
[…] “American Woman” (The Guess Who) […]