| "Dark Lady" | |||||||||||
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| Single by Cher | |||||||||||
| from the album Dark Lady | |||||||||||
| B-side | "Two People Clinging To A Thread" "Carousel Man" (Argentina) |
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| Released | February 1974 | ||||||||||
| Format | 7" | ||||||||||
| Recorded | 1973/74 | ||||||||||
| Genre | Pop, rock, adult contemporary | ||||||||||
| Length | 3:27 | ||||||||||
| Label | MCA | ||||||||||
| Writer(s) | Johnny Durrell | ||||||||||
| Producer | Snuff Garrett | ||||||||||
| Cher singles chronology | |||||||||||
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"Dark Lady" is an pop rock song recorded by American singer actress Cher from eleventh studio album, Dark Lady. Produced by Snuff Garrett, it was released as the album's first single in early 1974. The song became Cher's third solo U.S. number one hit on March 23, 1974 and her last until "Believe" a quarter-century later.[1]
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"Dark Lady" was written by The Ventures keyboard player Johnny Durrill. He recalled: "I spent a week in his (Snuff Garrett's) office playing him songs, one of which Cher recorded. Later, when I was on tour in Japan with the Ventures, I was writing an interesting song. I telegraphed the unfinished lyrics to Garrett. He said to 'make sure the bitch kills him.' Hence, in the song both the lover and fortune teller were killed." [2]
The "Dark Lady" of the song's title is a fortune teller. The narrator of the song learns that her lover has been unfaithful to her with, as the fortune teller says, "someone else who is very close to you." The narrator returns home in a state of shock and then realizes that she had once smelled, in her own room, the perfume the fortune teller had been wearing. She races back to the fortune teller's place with a gun and catches her lover and the fortune teller "laughing and kissing", and shoots them both to death in a fit of rage.
In 1974, "Dark Lady" topped the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 for one week, becoming Cher's third solo #1 hit. The song was also a #1 hit in Canada and Sweden, a top ten hit in Norway and a top twenty hit in the Netherlands. Like Half-Breed, the song struggled in West Germany and the UK, though it managed to reach top forty status in the UK.
There are two version of the video. The first version of the video is a live performance that was aired in the third season of The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour in 1973. In this performance Cher was dressed in all black and was wearing a black veil on her head. The second video of the song is a cartoon. This second video follows the whole story of the song.
In 2002, a special remix medley was created by Dan-O-Rama for a video montage that was used in Cher's Living Proof: The Farewell Tour. The medley contains videos of "All I Really Want to Do", "Gypsys, Tramps & Thieves", "Half-Breed" and "Dark Lady". Unlike the other videos "Dark Lady" was unique because both the live and the cartoon videos had been mixed.
In 1999, Cher performed this song throughout her Do You Believe? Tour, for the first time in twenty-five years. In 2002, she performed the song 325 times in her Living Proof: The Farewell Tour.
Cher performed the song on the following concert tours:
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| Preceded by "Seasons in the Sun" by Terry Jacks |
U.S. Billboard Billboard Hot 100 number one single March 23, 1974 – March 30, 1974 |
Succeeded by "Sunshine on My Shoulders" by John Denver |
In 1974 Lea Laven recorded the Finnish rendering of "Dark Lady" entitled "Tumma nainen": the track was featured on Laven's Niin album and with the title cut "Tumma nainen" became a double A-side Top Ten hit in Finland affording Laven her career record. "Tumma nainen" was also recorded by Ami Aspelund for her 1974 Ami album.
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