It's a Man's Man's Man's World

"It's a Man's Man's Man's World" is a song by James Brown and Betty Jean Newsome. Brown recorded it on February 16, 1966 in a New York studio and released it as a single later that year. It reached #1 on the Billboard Top R&B Singles charts and #8 in the Billboard Hot 100.^[1] The song became a staple of Brown's live shows.

The song's lyrics, which Rolling Stone characterized as "almost biblically chauvinistic",^[2] attribute all of the productive work that goes on in the world to the male gender, but allows that it would all amount to "nothing without a woman or a girl." Brown's female co-writer Newsome wrote the lyrics based on her own observations of the relations between the sexes. The song's title is a pun on the title of the 1963 comedy film It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.

The first verse states that man made the car, train, electric light, and the boat, while the second verse states that man made toys for both boys and girls, as well as to survive, by stating that "Man Makes Money" to buy from other men. In the fade out, Brown states that man is "Lost" "In the Wilderness" as well "In his Bitterness."^[3]

Like Brown's earlier ballad recording of "Prisoner of Love", "It's a Man's Man's Man's World" was recorded with a studio band that included some members of his touring band as well as a string section. Brown's vocal group, The Famous Flames, were not used on this recording, though they did receive label credit. A female chorus was involved in the recording sessions, but their parts were edited out of the song's final master.

In 2004, "It's a Man's Man's Man's World" was ranked number 123 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest songs of all time.

Brown recorded a big band jazz arrangement of "It's a Man's Man's Man's World" with the Louie Bellson Orchestra for his 1970 LP Soul on Top.

Personnel

• James Brown - lead vocal

with studio band:

• Dud Bascomb - trumpet
• Waymon Reed - trumpet
• Lamarr Wright - trumpet
• Haywood Henry - baritone saxophone
• Ernie Hayes - piano
• Billy Butler - guitar
• Bernard "Pretty" Purdie - drums

Other players, including trombone, bass and strings, unknown

Arranged and conducted by Sammy Lowe

Chart positions

Development

The song that became "It's a Man's Man's Man's World" evolved over a period of several years from various tentative efforts. Tammy Montgomery (later known as Tammi Terrell) recorded a sound-alike song, "I Cried", for Brown's Try Me label in 1963. Brown himself recorded a demo version, provisionally entitled "It's a Man's World", in 1964.

Cover versions

The song has been recorded by many artists in various idioms over the years.

• Lucio Dalla included it in the 1966 (the same year of its first recording by James Brown) in his album '1999'. It was the first hit single for Australian singer Renée Geyer, who recorded it for her 1974 album It's a Man's Man's World.
• The MC5 covered the song in 1970 on their live album Teen Age Lust, the song is also on the soundtrack to The Runaways movie.
• Grand Funk Railroad covered the song in 1983 on their album "What's Funk?".
• The Residents covered the song in 1984 to promote their album George and James,^[4] despite it not appearing on that album. A music video was also created.
• Van Morrison released a live version on his double album A Night in San Francisco in 1994.
• Cher recorded it on her 1995 album It's a Man's World.
• Mountain recorded it on their 1996 album Man's World.
• Marla Glen recorded it on her album Our World in 1997.
• Sekouba Bambino,^[5] a Guinean singer well known in West Africa, released a cover version on his 2002 album Sinikan.
• Natacha Atlas recorded it on her 2003 album Something Dangerous under the simplified title "Man's World".
• Christina Aguilera performed a critically acclaimed rendition of the song as a posthumous tribute to James Brown at the 2007 Grammy Awards. Her performance has been voted as the 3rd Most Memorable Grammy Performance of all time.
• Celine Dion performed the song as a part of her 2008-2009 Taking Chances Tour.
• Seal recorded the song for his 2008 album Soul and released it as the second single from the album.
• Michael Lynche sang the song during the ninth season of American Idol.
• The cast of Glee, featuring Quinn Fabray (Dianna Agron) covered the song during season one's twenty-first episode, entitled "Funk", and released it as a single. Quinn was trying to represent the suppressed feeling women feel from men.^[6]
• The song was covered by Mary Byrne during the first live show of series seven of The X Factor. Fellow finalist Paije Richardson had also performed it as his second audition song after judge Louis Walsh gave him a second chance following his colleague's refusal to put Richardson through to the next round.
• It is also a popular song for live performances, having been performed in concert by such artists as Govt. Mule and The Grateful Dead.
• Tom Jones recorded it, and it's available on the album The Soul of Tom Jones
• Dave Meniketti, the frontman of the hard rock band Y&T covered this song on his solo album "On The Blue Side".
• Joss Stone recorded it on her first album The Soul Sessions" live at Kennedy Center, Washington, D.C., on December 7, 2003.
• Tom Andrews a UK YouTube contributor performed the song during The Ellen DeGeneres Show on 16th September 2010. This followed a short interview and preceded Ellen's announcement of him being the second signing to her record label eleveneleven.
• Gienek Loska, winner of first season of polish X Factor sang the song several times during the season.
• Shannon Noll, Australian pop/rock musician has recorded a version of the track for his upcoming fourth studio album A Million Suns
• Etta James, covered the song in 2006 on her album "All The Way"

Sampling

"It's A Man's World" by Ice Cube from his 1990 album AmeriKKKa's Most Wanted samples this song. The trumpet introduction was sampled by the Wu-Tang Clan for their 2001 song "Gravel Pit" and by Nigerian-Greek rapper MC Yinka in the song "Χαιρετισμός" (Chairetismos) from his album "Αλάνα" (Alana). 2Pac used a sample on the song "Tradin War Stories" from his 1996 album All Eyez on Me. The song is also sampled on Alicia Keys' song "Fallin'". Macy Gray sampled on her song "Ghetto Love" on her album "Big". The song is also sampled on Guilty Simpson's song "Man's World" produced by J Dilla.^[7] The song was most recently sampled in a live performance by Jennifer Hudson as the prelude to her cover of Aretha Franklin's classic, "Respect". The hip hop band Heavy D & the Boyz, sampled the musical introduction as the same on their track "You Ain't Heard Nuttin' Yet" for the album titled Big Tyme.

Answer songs

Neneh Cherry released the answer song "Woman" on her 1996 album Man in response to the chauvinism of the original.

The band Napalm Death released the song "It's a M.A.N.S World!", which attacks and parodies the ideas of chauvinism and patriarchy ideas, on their 1988 album From Enslavement to Obliteration.

Citations

1. ^ Whitburn, Joel (2004). Top R&B/Hip-Hop Singles: 1942-2004. Record Research. p. 84. 
2. ^ It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World: James Brown : Rolling Stone
3. ^ James Brown interviewed on the Pop Chronicles (1969).
4. ^ http://www.theresidents.co.uk/discography/more/its_a_mans_world.html
5. ^ http://membres.lycos.fr/sbambino/index.htm
6. ^ http://www.amazon.com/dp/B003N079GW/
7. ^ http://www.thewire.co.uk/articles/831/

References

• Leeds, Alan M., and Harry Weinger (1991). Star Time: Song by Song. In Star Time (pp. 46–53) [CD liner notes]. London: Polydor Records.
• White, Cliff (1991). Discography. In Star Time (pp. 54–59) [CD liner notes]. London: Polydor Records.

External links

• Song Review from Allmusic
• It's A Mans Mans Mans World Video