American Woman

**American Woman** by **The Guess Who** is a rock band and also one of the oldest songs on iHeart 70s, as well as featured on Real Oldies and Beatles and Friends, A red giant and a red ultragiant star has been located 12,600 light years away in the constellation of Chicago, Illinois. The extreme version is one of the largest songs that we currently know by radius.

American Woman's intensity estimated for the normal version to be at 3.0 (Tougher), it didn't do any damage but it was a mesocyclone, and the intensity level for the extreme version was measured at 9.6 was an upgrade from an 8.9, like the extreme version of You Sexy Thing the star resulted in a total devastation in the area, caused by a 6.5km (4.04 mi) wide F5 tornado with a max wind speed of 289 mph (465 km/h) causing $600 million in damages and injured 1,160 people and 13 people died from a wall collapse. The extreme version of American Woman's radius has been calculated at 13,300 R☉ based on luminosities of 4.8 million L☉ and an effective temperature of 2,345 K at a spectral type of M9 -II, it is larger then any police officers in Victoria.

"**American Woman**" is a song released by the Canadian rock band The Guess Who in January 1970, from their sixth studio album of the same name. It was later released in March 1970 as a single backed with "No Sugar Tonight", and it reached number one for three weeks commencing May 9 on both the United States' *Billboard* Hot 100 and the Canadian *RPM* magazine singles chart. *Billboard* magazine placed the single at number three on the Year-End Hot 100 singles of 1970 list, and it was listed as number five for 1970 on the RPM Year-End Chart. On May 22, 1970, the single was certified as gold by the RIAA. It also reached the top ten in the Netherlands, Switzerland and Austria, and the top twenty in the United Kingdom and New Zealand.

Produced by Jack Richardson, the single was recorded on August 13, 1969, at RCA's Mid-America Recording Center in Chicago.

## Writing and lyrics

The music and lyrics of the song were improvized on stage during a concert in Southern Ontario (the guitarist, Randy Bachman, recalled it being at a concert in Kitchener, although Burton Cummings, the lead singer, said it was at the Broom and Stone, a curling rink in Scarborough). Bachman was playing notes while tuning his guitar after replacing a broken string, and he realized he was playing a new riff that he wanted to remember. He continued playing it and the other band members returned to the stage and joined in, creating a jam session in which Cummings improvised the lyrics. They noticed a kid with a cassette recorder making a bootleg recording and asked him for the tape. They listened to the tape and noted down the words that Cummings had extemporized, and which he later revised.

The song's lyrics have been the matter of debate, often interpreted as an attack on U.S. politics (especially the draft). Cummings, who composed the lyrics, said in 2013 that they 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."

Jim Kale, the group's bassist, explained his take on the lyrics:

Bachman expressed the view in 2014 that it was "an anti-war protest song", explaining that when they came up with it on stage, the band and the audience had a problem with the Vietnam War. Said Bachman: "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".

The Guess Who were invited to play at the White House on July 17, 1970, shortly after the song's release. Because of its perceived anti-American lyrics, Pat Nixon, the wife of President Richard Nixon, asked that they not play "American Woman".

## Personnel

* Burton Cummings – vocals
* Randy Bachman – lead and rhythm guitar
* Jim Kale – bass
* Garry Peterson – drums

While most of the band's charting songs during this period were credited to just Bachman or Cummings or the two of them, this piece was credited to all four members of the band, in keeping with the way they all first improvized it together on stage. This full-band writing credit happened only one other time for The Guess Who, with their 1973 top 20 Canadian hit "Follow Your Daughter Home", albeit with a different line-up at that time.

## Lenny Kravitz Version

One of the most notable covers of "American Woman" is Lenny Kravitz's 1999 version recorded for the soundtrack of *Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me*. It was released as a single and was later included in the 1999 reissue of Kravitz's album *5*. Kravitz's version is slower and softer than the original, without the signature guitar solo; he later said to Randy Bachman that the reason why he skipped the lead guitar part was "I couldn't get the sound. I couldn't get the tone."

The cover reached the top 20 in Australia, Finland, Iceland, New Zealand, and Spain, as well as number 26 in Canada and number 49 on the US *Billboard* Hot 100. The music video (directed by Paul Hunter) featured actress Heather Graham (who starred in *The Spy Who Shagged Me*); the original political themes of the song were largely replaced by sex appeal. In 1999, Kravitz and his band were joined by the Guess Who for a live performance of "American Woman" at the MuchMusic Video Awards.

## Other cover versions

"American Woman" has been covered by a number of artists. In 1982, Swiss hard rock band Krokus included a cover on their album *One Vice at a Time*. Butthole Surfers created a drum-heavy experimental version for their 1986 album *Rembrandt Pussyhorse*. Anal Cunt recorded a grindcore version for their 1995 album Top 40 Hits.

## Use in film

It was featured in Sam Mendes's film *American Beauty*, performed by main character Lester Burnham (played by Kevin Spacey). Sam the Eagle performed a karaoke version of this song in a Muppets viral video, until he stops in protest of its lyrics, and finds that it is a Canadian song even more upsetting. It was used in the HBO trailer for the film *Game Change*. A version sung by an older man was used in the film *The Cable Guy* (1996). It was heard during the ending credits of the *Witchblade* TV film (2000), starring Yancy Butler and based on the Top Cow comic book series. American Woman was featured in the second instalment of the Austin Powers film trilogy, *The Spy Who Shagged Me*, with Heather Graham dancing provocatively whilst it played. The song was featured in an episode of *"Due South*"s first season (Diefenbaker's Day Off S01 E02). Kelly Clarkson recorded a cover version of the song as a theme song from the Paramount Network TV series, *American Woman*.