"Woman" is a 1966 single written by

Paul McCartney Sir James Paul McCartney (born 18 June 1942) is an English singer, songwriter and musician who gained global fame with the Beatles, for whom he played bass guitar and the piano, and shared primary songwriting and lead vocal duties with John ...

(under the pseudonym Bernard Webb) and recorded by

Peter and Gordon Peter and Gordon were a British pop duo, composed of Peter Asher (b. 1944) and Gordon Waller (1945–2009), who achieved international fame in 1964 with their first single, the million-selling "A World Without Love". The duo had several subseq ...

. McCartney intended the song to test whether one of his compositions could be successful based on its own merits without being associated with the hit-making Lennon-McCartney songwriting team, which had produced dozens of hit records for

the Beatles The Beatles were an English Rock music, rock band formed in Liverpool in 1960. The core lineup of the band comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are widely regarded as the Cultural impact of the Beatle ...

and other acts (including Peter and Gordon). The duo's single did become a minor hit, reaching number 14 in the US and number 28 in the UK, but not before its author's true identity was publicly revealed.

Authorship

Under the

Lennon–McCartney Lennon–McCartney is the songwriting partnership between the English musicians John Lennon (1940–1980) and Paul McCartney (born 1942) of the Beatles. It is widely considered one of the greatest, best known and most successful musical collabo ...

moniker, McCartney had written three previous Peter and Gordon singles (viz. “

A World Without Love "A World Without Love" is a song recorded by the British duo Peter and Gordon and released as their first single in February 1964. It was included on the duo's debut album in the UK, and in the US on an album of the same name. The song was wri ...

”, “ Nobody I Know”, and “ I Don't Want to See You Again”). On this occasion, McCartney used the pseudonym Bernard Webb (though some Capitol pressings carry the name A. Smith instead) to see if the song would be a success without the Lennon–McCartney credit. McCartney commented at a press conference in August 1966, "People come up to them and say, 'Ah, we see you're just getting in on the Lennon–McCartney bandwagon'. That's why they did that one with our names not on it...because everyone sort of thinks that's the nlyreason they get hits. It's not true, really." However, the publishing credit was Lennon and McCartney's company

Northern Songs Northern Songs Ltd was a limited company founded in 1963, by music publisher Dick James, artist manager Brian Epstein, and songwriters John Lennon and Paul McCartney of the Beatles, to publish songs written by Lennon and McCartney. In 1965, ...

, and according to

Gordon Waller Gordon Trueman Riviere Waller (4 June 1945 – 17 July 2009) was a Scottish guitarist, singer and songwriter, best known as Gordon of the 1960s pop music duo Peter and Gordon, whose biggest hit was the no. 1 million-selling single "A World Wit ...

it took only two weeks for the song's real pedigree to be revealed, as the first review of the record said, "This Bernard Webb has an amazing talent. Could even be Paul McCartney!" "Woman" would be overtly introduced as written by McCartney when Peter and Gordon performed the song on the 11 April 1966 broadcast of the US TV show '' Hullabaloo''. Today, the song is publishing by MPL Music (McCartney) and Sony Music (under a new deal between Yoko Ono and Sony Music)

Reception

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertis ...

'' described the song as "a powerful ballad featuring strings, cellos in the baroque fashion and with an easy beat in strong support."

Weekly charts

Notes

*Although Peter & Gordon had several hits which charted higher than "Woman", Gordon Waller would cite "Woman" as the ultimate Peter and Gordon track and his personal favourite: "You can sing it without any music, you can sing it with one guitar, you can sing it with a band, or you can sing it with a bloody orchestra. I think it envelops a lot of our other songs from that period, which were basically all love songs." *McCartney can be seen giving a casual performance of the song in The Beatles: Get Back. *The 1981 single “

Woman A woman is an adult female human. Before adulthood, a female child or Adolescence, adolescent is referred to as a girl. Typically, women are of the female sex and inherit a pair of X chromosomes, one from each parent, and women with functi ...

” by

John Lennon John Winston Ono Lennon (born John Winston Lennon; 9 October 19408 December 1980) was an English singer-songwriter, musician and activist. He gained global fame as the founder, co-lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of the Beatles. Lennon's ...

, is a different song. *The demo version revealed that McCartney played the drums.

References

Sources

* 1966 singles Songs written by Paul McCartney RPM Top Singles number-one singles Peter and Gordon songs Columbia Graphophone Company singles 1966 songs Capitol Records singles Song recordings produced by John Burgess {{1960s-single-stub