Roy Orbison – (Oh) Pretty Woman

I’ve talked about Smokey Robinson and how his voice was iconic. Roy Orbison…the same thing. His voice was ridiculous and I mean that in the best possible way. It’s a voice that is so unique that copying it would be almost impossible.

This song was written for Orbison’s first wife, Claudette. One day, she left for the store by “walking down the street” and by the time she returned, Orbison had written what would become one of his biggest hits.

There was a quote that Tom Petty gave…that when he joined the Wilburys he called his mom and told her “Mom, I’m in a band with Roy Orbison!” Not Mom I’m in a band with Bob Dylan or a Beatle George Harrison…no it was Roy. That voice was golden and magical but he paid for his success dearly as you will read below.

This one has become a rock and roll standard. It was released in 1964 and he would have rough times to come. In 1957, Orbison married his sweetheart, Claudette Frady. She was 17 at the time and he was 21. As the young couple’s romance was soon thrust into jeopardy given Orbison’s rapid rise to fame, cracks began to appear. In November 1964, Orbison divorced Claudette over her alleged infidelities. However, within ten months, the pair had reconciled their differences and were once more in a loving relationship. They had three children.

It started on June 6, 1966, when Claudette and Roy were riding motorcycles. Claudette hit the door of a pickup truck and was killed instantly. Orbison poured himself into his work after that. He wrote and toured but was out of step with the mid to late-sixties music.  It was in Birmingham, England in September 1968 when catastrophe struck once more. News reached Orbison that a fire had broken out at his home in Tennessee and that his two eldest sons had tragically passed away. His younger child went to live with his grandparents.

His career stalled but he did come back in the 1980s with Jeff Lynn producing his new album Mystery Girl. He also was in the Wilburys and that thrilled the rest of the group. Roy died suddenly on December 6, 1988.  Mystery Girl would be released around a month and a half after Roy passed away. The album was hugely successful peaking at #5 in America and #4 in Canada.

(Oh) Pretty Woman peaked at #1 on the Billboard 100, in Canada, New Zealand, and the UK. This was during the height of the British Invasion which makes it even more significant.

In 1982 Van Halen covered Oh Pretty Woman. They did a great job on the song and introduced Roy and his song to a new generation. I bought the single when it was released. Roy’s vocals can’t be matched but they did their own arrangement and it worked.

Per songfacts…In 1964, Orbison was the only American artist to have a #1 UK hit, and he did it twice – with “(Oh) Pretty Woman” and “It’s Over.”

Bob Dylan: “He [Roy Orbison] could sound mean and nasty on one line and then sing in a falsetto like Frankie Valli in the next. With Roy, you didn’t know if you were listening to mariachi or opera. He kept you on your toes. With him, it was all about fat and blood. He sounded like he was singing from an Olympian mountaintop and he meant business.”

(Oh )Pretty Woman

Pretty woman, walkin’ down the street
Pretty woman the kind I like to meet
Pretty woman I don’t believe you, you’re not the truth
No one could look as good as you, mercy

Pretty woman won’t you pardon me
Pretty woman I couldn’t help but see
Pretty woman that you look lovely as can be
Are you lonely just like me

Pretty woman stop awhile
Pretty woman talk awhile
Pretty woman give your smile to me
Pretty woman yeah, yeah, yeah
Pretty woman look my way
Pretty woman say you’ll stay with me
‘Cause I need you, I’ll treat you right
Come with me baby, be mine tonight

Pretty woman don’t walk on by
Pretty woman don’t make me cry
Pretty woman don’t walk away, hey, okay
If that’s the way it must be, okay
I guess I’ll go on home, it’s late
There’ll be tomorrow night, but wait
What do I see?
Is she walkin’ back to me?
Yeah, she’s walkin’ back to me
Oh, oh, pretty woman

…

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

39 thoughts on “Roy Orbison – (Oh) Pretty Woman”

  1. A real classic, song & voice. I was surprised he was riding a motorbike, because I thought he was legally blind (knew he could see a tiny bit but not enough to do anything with) but I just read he could see, well enough I guess with his glasses which were prescription shades.
    I had that Van Halen single too, they did it well.

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    1. Yea it was tragic… if that wasn’t bad enough then the fire broke out 2 years later…terrible. I wish he could have lived longer to see that 80s album hit.

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  3. I remember the first time I saw Roy Orbison (probably that Ed Sullivan appearance) and thinking what an unlikely-looking star he was…and then I heard that voice. Two years later, A.C. Williams and Albert King wrote and recorded a totally different song with the same title – also great.

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  9. Always liked this one, and no idea why I’ve never explored his records. We used to have a music trivia show on primetime TV, and the host would take great delight in marking people wrong if they missed the oh in front of the title.

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  11. I love Bob Dylan’s quote. Yes he did. He was a god in the musical world and he earned the title. I’ve been a Roy fan since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. We had at least one of his albums and I remember falling into the narrative of his mini-operas, whether it was Leah and the pearl diver, or going uptown to penthouse #3, or running scared. He knew just how to ratchet the tension in his songs (e.g. running scared.) Love that he had so many “dream” songs. I do think Pretty Woman was probably the first song I heard of his and I was sold right then and there.

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  14. r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r!!!!

    Man, I love that song, Max. To start with, what a friggin’ amazing guitar riff! And those drums propelling the song forward are cool as well.

    I also love the fact the fact that the man with the huge glasses and voice of an opera singer wasn’t exactly your typical rock & roll star. And yet he was exactly that!

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