ROY ORBISON – “Oh, Pretty Woman”
The song where doughy, doleful Roy Orbison finally gets the girl – of course we’re on his side from the start, and Orbison plays on his persona and our sympathies with a wonderful piece of three-minute theatre. From the opening, stuttering, is-it-a-riff-or-isn’t-it, everything on this superbly crafted record is tackling the same questions: will he dare to ask? will she say yes? The odds are frankly against it (Roy’s clumsy, perceptive chat-up line is asking if she’s as lonely as he is). He psychs himself up – “Mercy!” – he sends himself up – “rrrrrowwwwl” – he turns all courtly… and he falls flat. The section after his brave-faced “OK” tears me in two – half of me is swooning over every sob-soaked vocal nuance, half of me just wants to give Roy a hug. And then the ending, perfectly understated, that final drum hit drawing a line and giving us a chance to cheer our hero into the sunset. Listener, she married him.
(And then, for the Pretty Woman of the title was Roy’s wife Claudette, she cheated on him. Sometimes I really hate search engines.)
8
Such a clever bit of writing too…The middle 8 has such great unorthodox chord changes
One of THOSE classic opening bars! Impossible to ignore, a finger-snapping swagger of a song, everything about it is excitement, raw attraction, adolescent lazy voyeurism, and the dream ending, all topped with an unforgettable bass line.
Ten for me.
The song get’s a less optimistic reading in the US version of Popular here:
http://nohardchords.wordpress.com/2010/11/18/118-roy-orbison-oh-pretty-woman/
It’s that tension between the music and lyric which gives the song it’s edge – despite being roped in to soundtrack the Julia Roberts/Richard Gere movie – it never settles into one mood or another
And then, for the Pretty Woman of the title was Roy’s wife Claudette, she cheated on him
Yeah, but then she ‘walked on back’ and they remarried the next year.
We had a bit of a conversation about this on the “It’s Over” thread a couple of weeks back.
She died in a car crash a year after they got back together. Then 2 of the Big O’s kids died in a house fire. Then people stopped buying his records in such large numbers. And then, after starting a comeback that looked like it might have some real legs under it – he died.
Bugger.
Claudette had another number one written about her by Roy. She’s the same Claudette that Don and Phil Everly were threatening to “squeeze to death” on the other side of All I Have To Do Is Dream.
One of those tracks where I find it’s no longer possible to assess its merits with any degree of objectivity, simply because it’s been played to death. If you went only by the playlists of the commercial radio stations where I live, you’d imagine that Roy Orbison had never recorded anything else.
I’d probably have assigned it a 7 back in the day, but for me, now, even a 2 would be pushing it.
“She’s walking back to me…” RIP Barbara Orbison.