| "Oh, Pretty Woman" | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single by Roy Orbison | ||||
| B-side | "Yo Te Amo Maria" | |||
| Released | August 1964 | |||
| Genre | Rockabilly | |||
| Length | 2:55 | |||
| Label | Monument 45-851 | |||
| Writer(s) | Roy Orbison, Bill Dees | |||
| Producer | Fred Foster | |||
| Roy Orbison singles chronology | ||||
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"Oh, Pretty Woman" is a song, released in August 1964, which was a worldwide success for Roy Orbison. Recorded on the Monument Records label in Nashville, Tennessee, it was written by Roy Orbison and Bill Dees. The song spent three weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100.[1] "Oh, Pretty Woman" was also Orbison's third single to top the British singles chart (for a total of three weeks). The previous Orbison singles to reach No.1 in the UK were "Only the Lonely" in 1960 and "It's Over" earlier in 1964. There were three guitar players on the session, Billy Sanford, Jerry Kennedy and Wayne Moss. Billy Sanford, who later played session for everybody from Elvis to Don Williams (and took to the road with Don in the 90's) did the kick-off. Williams introduced him as a kid who had just arrived Nashville, with a borrowed guitar, who heard Orbison was minus a guitar player, who went over and got the gig.
Although the official recording appeared in August 1964, the Beatles recalled Orbison having written and performed the song during a mid-1963 tour of the UK on which both acts performed.[2]
Five years after its release, in 1969, the single was awarded gold record by RIAA.[3] Orbison posthumously won the 1991 Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance for his live recording of the song on his HBO television special Roy Orbison and Friends, A Black and White Night. In 1999, the song was honored with a Grammy Hall of Fame Award and was named one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked it #222 on their list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time."
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The lyrics tells the story of a man who sees a pretty woman walking by. He yearns for her and wonders if, as beautiful as she is, she might be lonely like he is. At the last minute, she turns back and joins him.
The title was inspired by Orbison's wife Claudette interrupting a conversation to announce she was going out; when Orbison asked if she was okay for cash, his co-writer Bill Dees interjected "A pretty woman never needs any money."
In 1989, the controversial rap group 2 Live Crew recorded a parody of the Orbison song, using the alternate title "Pretty Woman" for their album Clean As They Wanna Be. The 2 Live Crew sampled the distinctive bassline from the Orbison song, but the romantic lyrics were replaced by talk about a hairy woman and her bald-headed friend and their appeal to the singer, as well as denunciation of a "two-timing woman."
Orbison's publisher, Acuff-Rose Music sued 2 Live Crew on the basis that the fair use doctrine did not permit reuse of their copyrighted material for profit. The case, Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. went all the way to the United States Supreme Court. The Supreme Court decided in 2 Live Crew's favor, greatly expanding the doctrine of fair use and extending its protections to parodies created for profit. It is considered a germinal fair use decision.[4]
The song has been covered by a number of artists:
| Preceded by "The House of the Rising Sun" by The Animals |
Billboard Hot 100 number one single "Oh, Pretty Woman" by Roy Orbison September 26, 1964 (three weeks) |
Succeeded by "Do Wah Diddy Diddy" by Manfred Mann |
| Preceded by "I'm Into Something Good" by Herman's Hermits |
UK number one single "Oh, Pretty Woman" by Roy Orbison (first run) October 8, 1964 (two weeks) |
Succeeded by "(There's) Always Something There to Remind Me" by Sandie Shaw |
| Preceded by "(There's) Always Something There to Remind Me" by Sandie Shaw |
UK number one single "Oh, Pretty Woman" by Roy Orbison (second run) November 12, 1964 (one week) |
Succeeded by "Baby Love" by The Supremes |
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