美国国家公共电台 NPR You're Gonna Hear Them Roar: 'I Am Woman' Is An Anthem Beyond Its Era

You're Gonna Hear Them Roar: 'I Am Woman' Is An Anthem¹ Beyond Its Era

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

Here is one timeless song.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I AM WOMAN")

HELEN REDDY: (Singing) I am woman, hear me roar, in numbers too big to ignore. And I know too much to go back and pretend.

GREENE: "I Am Woman" was the No. 1 hit for singer Helen Reddy in 1972, and it remains² today an anthem for female pride and solidarity³. Helen Reddy sang it again at the Los Angeles Women's March last year.

(SOUNDBITE OF 2016 LA WOMEN'S MARCH)

REDDY: (Singing) 'Cause I've heard it all before, and I've been down there on the floor. And no one's ever going to keep me down again.

GREENE: NPR's Neda Ulaby tells us more about a song that was really a no-brainer for our year long series, American Anthem. I should warn you there is language here that may offend some listeners.

NEDA ULABY, BYLINE⁴: In an interview with Houston Public Media in 2014, Helen Reddy explained where "I Am Woman" came from.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

REDDY: I guess heaven, you know? It came to me and it wouldn't leave me. It was simply a phrase that, over and over, I am strong, I am invincible⁵, I am woman.

ULABY: Reddy could not get these words out of her head, and she wrote them down.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

REDDY: And I thought, well, this has to be a song.

JEFF WALD: She was pissed off, and she wrote it in bed in about 20 minutes. Probably was pissed off at me, for all I know.

ULABY: Meet Helen Reddy's husband at the time. Jeff Wald was also her manager. To say the song was not expected to be a success is, he says, an understatement.

WALD: Capitol Records said, that women's lib crap is going to kill her. Why are you letting your wife do this stuff?

ULABY: It's important to say here that Helen Reddy is still alive but she suffers from dementia so she wasn't able to be interviewed. Wald, though, is happy to fill in the backstory about how they got pushback from a Capitol Records executive.

WALD: He said it was a piece of [expletive], and that he couldn't stand it and that it was going to end her career. So I jumped up on his desk.

ULABY: He jumped up on the desk, and I cannot describe on the radio what he did next.

WALD: And the cocaine⁶ had nothing to do with that behavior.

ULABY: So Wald took the song to a radio station in the Washington, D.C., suburbs, a city they picked because it was filled with secretaries and other independent woman working pink-collar government jobs. Soon, he says, the station's phone was swamped with requests to hear a song that spoke⁷ to women at that moment.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I AM WOMAN")

REDDY: (Singing) Yes, I am wise, but it's wisdom born of pain. Yes, I've paid the price.

WALD: Market by market, we were working that record. You know, just one market at a time.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

REDDY: It was so hard. It was so hard.

ULABY: Helen Reddy, in that 2014 interview.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED BROADCAST)

REDDY: You know, so many radio stations would say, well, we're already playing a female record.

ULABY: It took nearly a year for "I Am Woman" to work its way up the charts and become a No. 1 hit. When Reddy then won a Grammy for best female performance, she thanked her manager husband.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

REDDY: I would like to thank Jeff Wald because he makes my success possible, and I would like to thank God because She makes everything possible.

ULABY: Calling God She on national television was audacious. But remember, this was 1972, the same year the Equal Rights Amendment⁸ passed the Senate and Shirley Chisholm ran for president. The Supreme⁹ Court made its decision in Roe¹⁰ v. Wade¹¹ just a month after "I Am Woman" reached No. 1.

Nadine Hubbs is a musicologist at the University of Michigan.

NADINE HUBBS: This song really resonated for a lot of people. She was putting into words some really important social changes that were going on in that moment.

ULABY: Part of the reason the song works as an anthem, she says, is because it's so emphatically first-person, and yet, about all women.

HUBBS: She's clearly singing for women, not just for herself. And she's placing herself on a larger stage.

ULABY: With lines like, I am strong, Hubbs says, the chorus crystallizes the drive and passion of the women's movement.

HUBBS: And then you have the other women coming in, the collectivity coming in. Strong, they echo her. I am invincible, invincible.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I AM WOMAN")

REDDY: (Singing) I am strong. Strong. I am invincible. Invincible. I am woman.

HUBBS: There's where she's with her gals¹².

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I AM WOMAN")

REDDY: (Singing) I am woman, watch me grow. See me standing¹³ toe-to-toe.

ULABY: "I Am Woman" has been covered by other singers over the years. Betty Wright recorded it in 1973.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I AM WOMAN")

BETTY WRIGHT: (Singing) I am woman. W-O-M-A-N. Uh huh. I am woman, watch me grow.

ULABY: The main characters in the movie "Sex And The City 2" picked it up in 2010 during a gleeful karaoke scene.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "SEX AND THE CITY 2")

SARAH JESSICA PARKER: (As Carrie) Everyone.

UNIDENTIFIED ACTORS: (As karaoke crowd, singing) I am woman, watch me grow. See me standing toe-to-toe.

ULABY: And about a year ago, the band Pink Martini started performing it, too. But lead singer China Forbes was at first not crazy about the song. It felt, well, a little dated. Then she made a joke when she introduced it.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

CHINA FORBES: Are there any women here tonight?

(APPLAUSE)

FORBES: Can you come up onstage?

ULABY: All these women came rushing up to the stage, and it was hundreds and hundreds of women.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

FORBES: So this is a song that is becoming more and more relevant every day. It goes something like this.

(Singing) I am woman, hear me roar in numbers too big to ignore.

And we all sang "I Am Woman" together, and it was so incredibly powerful that I went from being slightly dubious¹⁴ about singing the song, "I Am Woman," to addicted¹⁵ to singing the song, "I Am Woman."

ULABY: Sure, "I Am Woman" is a period piece, and maybe a little bit corny. But, says Forbes...

FORBES: It's so wonderful that a song like that exists 'cause it's so galvanizing and empowering that the cheesiness goes away, and you're just left with this incredible feeling.

STORM LARGE: When you're in it, and you're performing it and everybody's singing it, you're just like, oh, my God. I can do anything. (Laughter).

FORBES: It's so true.

ULABY: That's Forbes' bandmate, Storm Large. She says their audiences reacted strongly for a reason. Pink Martini started performing "I Am Woman" right around the beginning of the #MeToo movement.

FORBES: Boy, is this song...

LARGE: Yeah. Do we need it.

FORBES: ...Timely.

LARGE: Right.

FORBES: Like, wow.

ULABY: Suddenly, a song that seemed sort of dusty felt intensely relevant.

LARGE: It's got a lot of hope to it, and God knows we need a lot of positivity and some optimism.

ULABY: And not just for women, they say.

FORBES: Lately, I've been inviting¹⁶ men and women onstage, and they come up. The men come up, too. It's so awesome¹⁷.

LARGE: Yeah. We need their help. And the dudes get into it, too. I'm very proud of our sausage Americans (laughter).

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I AM WOMAN")

FORBES: (Singing) But I'm still an embryo¹⁸ with a long, long way to go until I make my brother understand.

ULABY: A battle cry that speaks beyond gender¹⁹ to unify²⁰ its audiences in a fight for a fairer world. Neda Ulaby, NPR News.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "I AM WOMAN")

FORBES: (Singing) I am strong.

LARGE: (Singing) Strong.

FORBES: (Singing) I am invincible.

LARGE: (Singing) Invincible.

FORBES: (Singing) I am woman.

1 anthem   

n.圣歌，赞美诗，颂歌

参考例句：

• All those present were standing solemnly when the national anthem was played.奏国歌时全场肃立。
• As he stood on the winner's rostrum,he sang the words of the national anthem.他站在冠军领奖台上，唱起了国歌。

2 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

3 solidarity   

n.团结；休戚相关

参考例句：

• They must preserve their solidarity.他们必须维护他们的团结。
• The solidarity among China's various nationalities is as firm as a rock.中国各族人民之间的团结坚如磐石。

4 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

5 invincible   

adj.不可征服的，难以制服的

参考例句：

• This football team was once reputed to be invincible.这支足球队曾被誉为无敌的劲旅。
• The workers are invincible as long as they hold together.只要工人团结一致，他们就是不可战胜的。

6 cocaine   

n.可卡因，古柯碱（用作局部麻醉剂）

参考例句：

• That young man is a cocaine addict.那个年轻人吸食可卡因成瘾。
• Don't have cocaine abusively.不可滥服古柯碱。

7 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

8 amendment   

n.改正，修正，改善，修正案

参考例句：

• The amendment was rejected by 207 voters to 143.这项修正案以207票对143票被否决。
• The Opposition has tabled an amendment to the bill.反对党已经就该议案提交了一项修正条款。

9 supreme   

adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的

参考例句：

• It was the supreme moment in his life.那是他一生中最重要的时刻。
• He handed up the indictment to the supreme court.他把起诉书送交最高法院。

10 roe   

n.鱼卵；獐鹿

参考例句：

• We will serve smoked cod's roe at the dinner.宴会上我们将上一道熏鳕鱼子。
• I'll scramble some eggs with roe?我用鱼籽炒几个鸡蛋好吗？

11 wade   

v.跋涉，涉水；n.跋涉

参考例句：

• We had to wade through the river to the opposite bank.我们只好涉水过河到对岸。
• We cannot but wade across the river.我们只好趟水过去。

12 gals   

abbr.gallons （复数）加仑（液量单位）n.女孩，少女( gal的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Jim came skipping out at the gate with a tin pail, and singing Buffalo Gals. 这时，吉姆手里提着一个锡皮桶，嘴中唱着“布法罗的女娃们”蹦蹦跳跳地从大门口跑出来。 来自英汉文学 - 汤姆历险
• An' dey thinks dey wants mousy lil gals wid bird's tastes an' no sense at all. 他们想要的是耗子般的小姑娘，胃口小得像雀子，一点儿见识也没有。 来自飘（部分）

13 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

14 dubious   

adj.怀疑的，无把握的；有问题的，靠不住的

参考例句：

• What he said yesterday was dubious.他昨天说的话很含糊。
• He uses some dubious shifts to get money.他用一些可疑的手段去赚钱。

15 addicted   

adj.沉溺于....的，对...上瘾的

参考例句：

• He was addicted to heroin at the age of 17.他17岁的时候对海洛因上了瘾。
• She's become addicted to love stories.她迷上了爱情小说。

16 inviting   

adj.诱人的，引人注目的

参考例句：

• An inviting smell of coffee wafted into the room.一股诱人的咖啡香味飘进了房间。
• The kitchen smelled warm and inviting and blessedly familiar.这间厨房的味道温暖诱人，使人感到亲切温馨。

17 awesome   

adj.令人惊叹的，难得吓人的，很好的

参考例句：

• The church in Ireland has always exercised an awesome power.爱尔兰的教堂一直掌握着令人敬畏的权力。
• That new white convertible is totally awesome.那辆新的白色折篷汽车简直棒极了.

18 embryo   

n.胚胎，萌芽的事物

参考例句：

• They are engaging in an embryo research.他们正在进行一项胚胎研究。
• The project was barely in embryo.该计划只是个雏形。

19 gender   

n.（生理上的）性，（名词、代词等的）性

参考例句：

• French differs from English in having gender for all nouns.法语不同于英语，所有的名词都有性。
• Women are sometimes denied opportunities solely because of their gender.妇女有时仅仅因为性别而无法获得种种机会。

20 unify   

vt.使联合，统一；使相同，使一致

参考例句：

• How can we unify such scattered islands into a nation?我们怎么才能把如此分散的岛屿统一成一个国家呢？
• It is difficult to imagine how the North and South could ever agree on a formula to unify the divided peninsula.很难想象南北双方在统一半岛的方案上究竟怎样才能达成一致。