Jim Adams’ Song Lyric Sunday gives us the chance to share familiar, and sometimes not so familiar, songs.
If you fancy sharing one of your favourite songs you can find out how to participate, and also listen to all the great entries, here.
Jim’s prompts this week are all about temperature, in that we get to choose from Cool, Freeze, Heat, and Melt. Now, I think that most people are aware that we British don’t do heat very well and this year, so far, we’ve had some pretty high temperatures (for us anyway!) so I thought I would cool off with a Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress. That’s my story anyway!
This Hollies song originally appeared on the album Distant Light, it was released as a single on 17 April 1972, selling 1.5 million copies in the United States and two million worldwide. It reached No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 in September 1972. Billboard ranked it as the No. 24 song for 1972.
The song is different from most other Hollies songs in that there are no three-part vocal harmonies, instead it was written in the swamp rock style of Creedence Clearwater Revival, in terms of the vocal, rhythm, and melodic style. According to Alan Clarke, the song was written “in about five minutes”. That’s as maybe, but it sure does get people up on the dance floor!
I hope you enjoy this live performance recorded from the television series Midnight Special.
and here, a version with lyrics and exquisite pictures of Charlotte Rampling who, incidentally, was 2.5 inches short of the required 5’9″!
Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress
Saturday night I was downtown
Working for the FBI
Sitting in a nest of bad men
Whiskey bottles piling high
Bootlegging boozer on the west side
Full of people who are doing wrong
Just about to call up the D.A. man
When I heard this woman singing a song
A pair of forty fives made me open my eyes
My temperature started to rise
She was a long cool woman in a black dress
Just a 5’9″ beautiful ‘n’ tall
Just one look I was a bad mess
‘Cause that long cool woman had it all
I saw her heading to the table
Well, a tall walking big black cat
Charlie said, I hope that you’re able, boy
‘Cause I’m telling you she knows where it’s at
Well, suddenly we hear the sirens
And everybody started to run
Jumping under doors and tables
Well, I heard somebody shooting a gun
Well, the D.A. was pumping my left hand
She was holding my right
Well, I told her, don’t get scared
‘Cause you’re gonna be spared
I’ve gotta be forgiven if I wanna spend my living
With a long cool woman in a black dress
Just a 5’9″ beautiful ‘n’ tall
Well with just one look I was a bad mess
‘Cause that long cool woman had it all
Had it all, had it all, had it all
Had it all, had it all, had it all (she had it all)
Source: LyricFind
Songwriters: Alan Clarke / Roger Frederick Cook / Roger John Reginald Greenaway
Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, Carlin America Inc
Thank you to Jim Adams, who hosts Song Lyric Sunday and gives us the chance to share lots of familiar, and some not so familiar, songs.
