THE HIT HAMMER: The Guess Who's "American Woman"

(The Hit Hammer is where I'm reviewing each #1 song on the Billboard Hot 100. Starting from when the chart started in 1958 and eventually working my way to the present. To see my inspiration and more information about this blog, please CLICK HERE)

The Guess Who - "American Woman"

Hit Number 1: May 9, 1970

Stay at Number 1: 3 Weeks

Creedence Clearwater Revival is one of the unluckiest bands chart-wise. I'm sure today they're all doing just fine. I'm positive that John Fogerty is a very very wealthy man. But one thing that has to sit in the back of their minds is how close they were to hitting #1, and how many times. Five times they had #2 hits, but they could never break into the top spot. I'm sure you must be thinking why the hell I'm talking about CCR in a post that's about the Guess Who's "American Woman". That's because I think it sounds like something that's straight out of CCR's repertoire. You could even call it a rip-off of CCR. And would you imagine, that rip-off made it to #1, even though the real band never got there. Go figure.

The Guess Who, a Canadian band, were not some obscure group. Two of their members included lead singer Burton Cummings and Randy Bachman. The former would have a moderately successful solo career, and the latter formed the group Bachman-Turner Overdrive. (BTO will appear in this blog) But before the Guess Who split up, they had a chart-topper in "American Woman", a bluesy rock song about a guy who clearly wants nothing to do with a woman. It all came from an improvisation. While the band was performing a live concert in Ontario, Bachman broke one of the strings on his guitar, and started playing a riff on the guitar to tune it up with the replacement string. He liked what his made-up riff sounded like, and so did the rest of the band. They all joined in, with Cummings rattling off some improvised lyrics. A kid in one of the first rows was making a bootleg recording with a cassette recorder, which the band noticed and they asked him for the recorder, which the kid agreed to do. I guess you could say that was their "demo tape" of the song, and the band later revised some of the lyrics and recorded "American Woman" in August 1969.

The content of the song is up for debate. The only thing we know for sure is that the narrator of the song is not having it with some "American woman," and he just wants her to leave him the hell alone. Some interpreted that as being an antiwar song, since they were a Canadian band, but Cummings denies that. He described the song as being about how American girls seemed to "grow up quicker," and that meant they were more dangerous. Bachman, however, claims that the song is indeed about being against the Vietnam War. He said that the band and the audience at the Ontario show were all against the war. He then said that one time when the Guess Who were touring the States, the U.S. tried to draft them into the war and send them to Vietnam, but the band already crossed the border back into Canada. Despite the song's possible antiwar meaning, and the subtle slam of American women, the band was invited to perform at the White House while Richard Nixon was president. Pat Nixon requested they not play "American Woman" though.

Clearly, a lot of people in America didn't give a crap about that, because "American Woman" was #1 in the country, and it was one of the biggest hits of 1970. The band "CCR's" their way through the song. Cummings sounds just like Fogerty, and the swampy guitar riffs along with his vocal gives me all kinds of "Fortunate Son" vibes, a CCR song that was confirmed to be an antiwar song. ("Fortunate Son" made it to #3. It's a 9) But "American Woman" is nastier than "Fortunate Son", largely because of the trashing of this woman in the song. Clearly the narrator and this woman had some tiny thing going, but the man wants no more of it. He basically says "screw you, leave me the hell alone," and the band sells that message about as well as they could have. Cummings growls and snarls his way through the song, and I love the "bye-byeeeees" that he improvises at the end. Antiwar or not, the song is a classic banger.

The Guess Who never had a hit that was bigger than "American Woman", but the song was paired with "No Sugar Tonight/New Mother Nature", the song that shared the A-side with "American Woman". (That song is a 7) Bachman left the group in 1970, and formed BTO in 1971, and Cummings left the group in 1975 after the band started transitioning into a more soft and jazzy sound. That's funny to think about, because Cummings' highest-charting hit during his solo career is a soft ballad called "Stand Tall" which made it to #10. (It's a 5) Even though they had their differences then, Bachman and Cummings, along with some of the other Guess Who members through the years, come together for small reunions sometimes. They continue to do so today, despite a nasty car wreck Cummings suffered in 2018. It's worth noting that Bachman had a 29-year marriage to Denise McCann, a fellow singer-songwriter. She's an American woman.

GRADE: 8/10

JUST MISSED:

The Ides of March's bold and exciting "Vehicle", which is a school band staple today, peaked at #2 behind "American Woman". It's also an 8.

10 ALERT!!!:

I don't know why, but this song just hits me a certain way. Marmalade's "Reflections of My Life" peaked at #10 behind "American Woman". And it's, at least for me, a 10.