#AtoZ 1981 Songs to Remember - "W" is for "Woman"
I chose 1981 music as my theme this year. My newest novel The Summer of Princess Diana is set in the summer of 1981, and oh! the music! Let’s take a look back at a pivotal time in the music industry.
I started this series with George Harrison, singing about John Lennon. And here is John Lennon, who died so tragically and prematurely in December 1980. "Woman" was released in January 1981 from his 1980 album Double Fantasy, and was the first single to be released after his murder.
In an interview for Rolling Stone magazine on December 5, 1980, three days before his murder, Lennon said that the song "came about because...it suddenly hit me what women do for us. Not just what my Yoko does for me, although I was thinking in those personal terms... but any truth is universal. What dawned on me was everything I was taking for granted. Women really are the other half of the sky, as I whisper at the beginning of the song. It's a 'we' or it ain't anything."
Yoko Ono created this poignant video.