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[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.]

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.

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