It’s weird to believe that Helen Reddy’s now-iconic females’s empowerment anthem was not at first a hit. When the 70s expanding second-wave feminist motion located it, however, “I Am Woman” developed right into a lot greater than simply a tune: it came to be an icon of extensive adjustment, one that survives on years after its launch.

Co-written with Ray Burton, “I Am Woman” was Reddy speaking up concerning the show business and also all of the undermining remarks made to her by males ready of power. Reddy, that had actually protected a recording agreement in 1971 with Capitol Records, was coming to be curious about the expanding feminist motion however might not locate a tune that expressed anything concerning females’s stamina. She made a decision to create a tune of her very own.

Listen to a few of one of the most empowering anthems from women musicians on our I Am Woman playlist.

” I thought of all these solid females in my household that had actually made it through the Depression and also globe battles and also drunken, violent spouses,” Reddy informed Australia’s Sunday Magazine in 2003. “But there was absolutely nothing in songs that showed that. The only tracks were ‘I Feel Pretty’ or that distressing tune ‘Born A Woman.’ These are not precisely equipping verses. I absolutely never ever thought about myself as a songwriter, however it boiled down to needing to do it.”

What does women empowerment seem like?

As much as Reddy might inform, nobody had actually rather responded to that concern yet in popular song. When Capitol Records asked her for a collection of tracks to prepare a cd, among the suggestions she sent out was a song composed with Australian artist Ray Burton, that had actually done in the Delltones and also the Executives. Reddy required an electrical outlet to share her inflammation at the method “females have actually constantly been externalized in showbiz,” she later on claimed, and also the problem in obtaining her occupation off the ground in the 1960s.

Legend has it that Reddy pictured the tune’s motivating verses– “I am solid, I am unyielding, I am lady”– while relaxing in bed. “And I believed, well, this needs to be a tune,” she informed NPR in 2014 After establishing it to songs with Burton, Reddy encountered one more uphill struggle obtaining her tag to launch it and also radio terminals to offer it broadcast. Reddy’s partner Jeff Wald summed up the feedback he learnt through the tag: “That females’s lib crap is gon na eliminate her. Why are you allowing your partner do this things?”

Woman, she barked

Wald, that was additionally a movie manufacturer and also Reddy’s supervisor, maintained promoting radio play, taking “I Am Woman” to a little terminal on the borders of Washington, D.C. Once they lastly obtained it on the air, the terminal got lots of telephone call with audiences asking to hear it once more. The following year, “I Am Woman” was picked to soundtrack the opening credit scores of the 1972 feminist funny Stand Up and also Be Counted, which starred Jacqueline Bisset as a press reporter that goes back to her home town to create a post concerning the females’s freedom motion. “The decision-makers at Capitol Records believed that, in instance the movie was a hit, they need to launch ‘I Am Woman’ as a solitary,” Reddy would certainly later on create in her 2006 narrative.

Because the initial tune was brief, under 2 mins, the tag asked Reddy to create one more knowledgeable for “I Am Woman,” which she did:

I am lady enjoy me expand
See me standing toe to toe
As I spread my lovin’ arms throughout the land
I’m still an embryo
With a long lengthy method to go

Till I make my bro recognize By the end of 1972, “I Am Woman” had actually increased to number 1 on the Billboard graphes (Capitol’s initial top solitary given that “ Ode to Billie Joe” by Bobbie Gentry in 1967), and also Reddy won a Grammy for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance. In her approval speech, Reddy notoriously said thanks to God, including, “Because She

makes whatever feasible.”

The future is women In the years adhering to the substantial success of “I Am Woman,” Reddy would certainly remain to launch leading 40 hits, such as Alan O’Day’s “Angie Baby” and also Alex Harvey’s “Delta Dawn,” both of which hit number 1 upon launch. Her initial hit, however, has actually obtained a tradition that extends via years of background and also popular culture (” I Am Woman” was memorably referenced in a 1975 episode of The Carol Burnett Show

where Jean Stapleton states, “I am lady!” to which Harvey Korman responds, “I recognize. I heard your holler”). As well as in 1973, National Organization for Women creator Betty Friedan created exactly how a gala in Washington, D.C. gathered the having fun of “I Am Woman.” Friedan remembered: “Suddenly, females left their seats and also began hemming and haw the resort ballroom and also signing up with hands in a circle that obtained bigger and also bigger till possibly a hundred of us were dancing and also vocal singing, ‘I am solid, I am unyielding, I am lady.’ It was a spontaneous, attractive expression of the excitement all of us really felt in those years, females truly relocating as females.”

Though it is identified with females’s empowerment, Reddy constantly kept that “I Am Woman” was not meant to simply have to do with a feminist message. “It’s not simply for females,” she claimed in 2003. “It’s a basic empowerment tune concerning really feeling excellent concerning on your own, counting on on your own. When my previous brother-in-law, a medical professional, was mosting likely to clinical institution he played it every early morning simply to obtain him going.”

Listen to a few of one of the most empowering anthems from women musicians on our I Am Woman playlist.