shadowkat: (Default)
[personal profile] shadowkat
Day 13 of the 30 Day Music Challenge - a song you like from the 70s. (Clearly whomever designed this meme has a thing for 70s music?)

I'm going with the song that I listened to constantly back then, and heard again today at my Unitarian Church's Zoom Service. It's from a singer who I adored back then, but haven't listened to much since, not sure why exactly.
Music moods come and go.

It was written and released in 1971, at the very beginning of the 1970s and at the top of the women's empowerment and counter-culture movement. My mother was working in Women's League of Voters, and owned the album upon which it premiered.




"I Am Woman" is a song written by Australian musicians Helen Reddy and Ray Burton. Performed by Reddy, the first recording of "I Am Woman" appeared on her debut album I Don't Know How to Love Him, released in May 1971, and was heard during the closing credits for the 1972 film Stand Up and Be Counted. A new recording of the song was released as a single in May 1972 and became a number-one hit later that year, eventually selling over one million copies. The song came near the apex of the counterculture era[1] and, by celebrating female empowerment, became an enduring anthem for the women’s liberation movement. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Woman


I heard it in 1975, at the top of its popularity. And often danced around my room and with my friends singing it. We were all 6-10 years of age at the time. To this day, this song makes me smile. There's too many songs that are written by men, or about women being subordinate to them that are honored.
Today, I feel the need to honor the women.

So for anyone who decides to post their song pick to my post? I think this is an easy category. So, I'm adding a challenge - pick a 1970s song, written and performed by a female artist that is NOT a love song and not about men. And not an instrumental number. And not sung by a guy at all. Also it can't be a song or an artist chosen by someone else in my journal. (In other words you can't use my selection or my artist.) Note, it can be written by a male/female songwriting team, but if you should find one that is just written by a female artist and performed by one and that was first released in the 1970s - from 70-79, then kudos.

[I bet I get no responses to this, because I've stumped folks. ETC: It can be by a group of female artists. And song by a group of female artists. Just not a group of male/female artists. Ie: No Sonny & Cher, or The Carpenters.]

Date: 2020-08-17 01:07 am (UTC)
cactuswatcher: (Default)
From: [personal profile] cactuswatcher
How about...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAR_Ff5A8Rk

Listen closely. The person being sung to is not necessarily male.

I can do this all day

Date: 2020-08-17 02:58 am (UTC)
wendelah1: (Remember vinyl?)
From: [personal profile] wendelah1
It Could Have Been Me by Holly Near. More about her: Holly Near: Singing for Our Lives

I Was a Free Man in Paris by Joni Mitchell, from Court and Spark (1974)

The Story of Bangladesh written and performed by Joan Baez

The Kiss by Judee Sill

You've Got a Friend by Carole King

Home by Karla Bonoff

Coal Miner's Daughter by Loretta Lynn. You aren't going to disqualify this song because it was about her dad? Her mom's in there, too. It's a song about her childhood.

Coat of Many Colors by Dolly Parton

Seventeen by Janis Ian

Cash In by Phoebe Snow

Well, that was fun. I can keep going, if you like.

EDIT

Had to add this

The Cat-Song by Laura Nyro

Edited (add something) Date: 2020-08-17 03:30 am (UTC)

Whoops

Date: 2020-08-17 05:12 pm (UTC)
wendelah1: (I live for Bach)
From: [personal profile] wendelah1
I got carried away. Sorry. It never occurred to me that this would make it harder for other people. The seventies was kind of prime time, musically speaking, for me, 'cause it was when I was listening to and buying a lot of music. And it was a wonderful period for singer-songwriters. I spent the better part of a day reliving my misspent youth--a good distraction since the present...is what it is. Thank you for that. When I began writing, I was going to be the first comment. Good thing I wasn't, as it turns out.

Everything I know about Loretta Lynn I learned from Coal Miner's Daughter. I didn't even start listening to country music in earnest until the nineties, to be honest. On first listen, I didn't hear that it put her father over her mother. But she's not a feminist, that's for sure. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that she gave speeches against the ERA back in the day, so you're probably right about that song.

I do get a very different reading from "A Kiss." It's all mystical, spiritual, even maybe, quasi-Christian imagery? She's giving her heart away to God, or a higher power, not a person. Well, that's how I've always interpreted it, and I'm sticking to that. Perhaps I got that in context from the rest of the album? Heart Food is a great record, which happily you can listen to on YouTube if you're interested.

Re: "A Coat of Many Colors." There is an album with that title that came out in the early seventies--it has a picture of a little girl wearing a coat of many colors, which I assumed was her? I didn't realize it had been written earlier in her career. I didn't start listening to Dolly Parton until the nineties.

So, you got about four/five out of ten I think. But you were only supposed to do one, so doesn't matter.

0 on following instructions. LOL!


Story of my life...

Re: Whoops

Date: 2020-08-18 01:14 am (UTC)
wendelah1: Someone out of field holding up a pair of heart-shaped and rose-colored glasses (Heart-shaped (and rose-colored) glasses)
From: [personal profile] wendelah1
I adore Dolly Parton. I love the trio records she made with Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris.

Date: 2020-08-17 03:59 am (UTC)
cjlasky7: (Default)
From: [personal profile] cjlasky7
I was going to go with the Go-Gos ("We Got the Beat"), but Beauty and the Beat was 1981. (Delete!)

I was set on Dolly's "Coat of Many Colors," but that was 1968! (Disqualified!)

Let's go with two choices from each end of the decade, from two very different artists:

First, from 1977, Patti Smiith and "Piss Factory":

https://youtu.be/gY_jW6Hg5pw

And second, the title track from Carole King's "Tapestry":

https://youtu.be/SAqYzqHdXu8

Tough one! (Up vote for Loretta Lynn and Laura Nyro.)

ETA: Naturally, the moment I posted, an obvious choice popped into my head:

The Roches: "We"

https://youtu.be/PbgQITWRTbQ
Edited Date: 2020-08-17 04:28 am (UTC)

Date: 2020-08-17 05:46 am (UTC)
wendelah1: (Default)
From: [personal profile] wendelah1
Yes! The Roches. (I have this record, too.) "We don't give out our ages or our phone numbers." Love it.

Date: 2020-08-17 11:44 am (UTC)
cjlasky7: (Default)
From: [personal profile] cjlasky7
Shadowkat has another classic(al) Roches track coming up soon....

Date: 2020-08-17 01:03 pm (UTC)
cjlasky7: (Default)
From: [personal profile] cjlasky7
Fair enough. Sometimes, it's difficult to restrain my geeky enthusiasm...

🙂

Date: 2020-08-17 05:04 am (UTC)
atpo_onm: (Default)
From: [personal profile] atpo_onm
Whew! That is a bit of a challenge-- the first things that came to my mind all turned out to be at least early 80's, or didn't meet the other criteria.

So... this first choice comes because I feel this woman's contributions to the music world are not sufficiently appreciated today, or even back then-- she had what I feel was largely a cult following. I was privileged to hear her perform not once but twice down at The Main Point in Philadelphia, a well known folk music club there in the day. She was as amazing live as on record.

I am only hedging slightly on these two links, in that vocals on the first are not the traditional kind, and on the second tune, because supposedly it was a song dedicated to Jimi Hendrix, whom she met and played with in 1966.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkx6WzlzZNg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1U4FpvNFgHc

However, no skirting caveats needed on this artist-- a cult figure in her early days in the U.S., although not in England as I understand, where she was rightly regarded as the genius she is. I did have to pick a tune that did not touch on any romance-related issues, since her first LP did have quite a few of them-- that weren't anything like your typical romance songs.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7h2hhQCNUk

Date: 2020-08-19 03:02 am (UTC)
dlgood: (Default)
From: [personal profile] dlgood
A 70s artist I discovered only recently: guitarist/singer Betty Davis (probably best known from being married to Miles Davis)

Her 1974 album "They Say I'm Different" is amazing if you like blues/funk/guitar
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQM02CFMMdY

Date: 2020-08-19 01:04 pm (UTC)
dlgood: (Default)
From: [personal profile] dlgood
Ah, okay. That's on me. I missed that in your challenge. She was rad. Her album was rad. I'm not entirely certain I really find a song of hers that's not about men at all.

Okay. So on her title track "They Say I'm Different", Betty talks about how she's different because she loves blues and she mentions her great grandpa loves blues... and shouts out a bunch of blues artists (more of which are men than women)... but I think those are just references and that this one reads to me like Betty is celebrating herself and her love of music.

Granted that probably can't be separated from expected gender roles... but does it qualify? Mostly, it's just that having been made aware of her I just want an excuse to celebrate her.
Edited Date: 2020-08-19 01:06 pm (UTC)

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