Tuesday, May 17, 2011

James Brown: "It's a Man's Man's Man's World"

James Brown. Legend.

This song. Also legend. Recorded in 1966, it is one of the most openly chauvinistic songs since Ludvig van Beethoven's "I Got My Bitches on Lock." It was co-written by this woman, who dated Brown in the '60s and inserted lines about how all the many achievements of man would be "nothing without a woman or a girl." (But, you know, men did pretty much invent everything worthwhile.) It's the only song she's attributed with as a writer, but it's at #123 on Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Songs of All Time." Not a bad legacy.

This version was recorded in 1981, at a concert that apparently also included "the hardest-working woman in show business," Janis Joplin. (Don't get too excited -- she doesn't make an appearance in this video. Gotta love the pairing though.) Enjoy.

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