Tag: My Woman from Tokyo

Kinks Weeks – Kinky, Romantic, & Purple? …mojohorizon.home.blog

I’ve been visiting Cork’s site for years and it’s one of my favorite blogs to visit. I’ve read posts about Eric Clapton, Sasquatch, Frozen Pizza, Iron Maiden, movies, blues songs, and many more. Take a visit to his site at https://mojohorizon.home.blog/ it’s totally worth it. 

Made you look! This isn’t an exploration of the erotic — sorry, if you’re disappointed. It’s a comparison of recordings. The song is called “She’s Got Everything”. It’s a pretty generic title, but it’s definitely in the hidden gem category. I came to know The Romantics’ version of this song when I was a college student. (You might be more familiar with “What I Like About You” which precedes it on their self-titled release.) Both songs are in the world of three-chord-or-so garage rock. I used to hear the songs back-to-back at college parties when enough people were feeling loose enough to dance.

If I had a time machine, I’d go back and yell, “It’s a TWIN SPIN!!” in the middle of them. I can honestly say I actually saw people doing “the monkey” to this song in the late 80’s and early 90’s. The song rocks! It’s got a great feel to it. Loud, fast, raucous. What more could you want?

If I’m not mistaken, I had The Romantics album on vinyl and discovered “She’s Got Everything” was actually written and sung by The Kinks’ Ray Davies from the liner notes. It took me awhile to find it or find it in a collection I wanted. It was apparently the B side to “Days.” The original version of “She’s Got Everything” by The Kinks is worth a listen.

I’m biased towards The Romantics version, but I love The Kinks and the songwriting of Ray Davies. Naturally, Ray’s brother Dave Davies plays an aggressive-sounding lead guitar solo on the track. “Pretty ringlets in her hair” is my favorite line from this song. I don’t think I’ve ever heard the word ringlets used in song outside of this example. (I always pictured a ringlet as a ribbon or something, but it’s a style of “princess curls” a la Shirley Temple.)

I recently listened to The Kinks’ tune again and dialed in the little instrumental bit around the 1:30 mark. When I listened to it, I heard the first few seconds of Deep Purple’s “Woman from Tokyo.” Listen to the DP tune around 8 seconds into it.

Deep Purple’s song didn’t come out until 1973. Did they own a copy of the 1968 Kinks release “She’s Got Everything”? I don’t know, but it’s just what I hear. The two songs are in different keys, but both feature the same chord changes of I to V, which is a distinct feature.

Till next time, keep your Mojo on the Horizon!

…

Deep Purple – Woman from Tokyo

Thanks to Dave for posting this song. It was a response to Dave asking us about songs that mention a city on Turntable Talk. This one and Nashville Cats came to mind…but I went with the Purple.

This song is all about the riff…it is a memorable riff… The song has drive and suspense. The dynamics are great after the middle section when the intro riff is reintroduced. What made Deep Purple different from other hard rock bands at the time was the Hammond C3 organ played by Jon Lord. In this song the Hammond sounds as mean as the guitar.

The song was inspired by Deep Purple’s first tour of Japan in 1972. The band was struck by the contrast between the crowded bustling, modern city of Tokyo and the traditional aspects of Japanese culture. Tokyo is personified as a woman.

Woman from Tokyo was on the album Who Do We Think We Are released in 1973. The band members were dealing with exhaustion from constant touring and the pressure to deliver another hit album. The album did quite well peaking at #4 in the UK, #15 on the Billboard Album Charts, and #11 in Canada.

Deep Purple wasn’t a singles band, but this one got a lot of airplay on radio. The song peaked at #60 on the Billboard 100 and #55 in Canada in 1973. That surprises me because I did hear this one a lot growing up.

The band never liked it very much. They didn’t start playing it live until they re-formed in 1984 after their 1976 split. Roger Glover insists that no real live versions of this song existed until the 80s despite being on live compilation albums from their 1970s period.

Because of endless touring and fatigue, Ian Gillan gave a six-month notice stating that he was leaving the band after fulfilling all his commitments in 1973. After lead singer Ian Gillian left Deep Purple in 1973, they had two other lead singers before reforming in 1984…and they were David Coverdale and Joe Lynn Turner. To me though…Ian Gillian is the singer I think of when I think of Deep Purple.

Ritchie Blackmore: “We were in Japan, and it was an incredible experience for us. The song came out of our admiration for the country and the fans there. Tokyo had a lasting impression on us.”

Ritchie Blackmore: “I wanted ‘Woman from Tokyo’ to have a strong, catchy riff that would stay with the listener. The middle section was intended to give it a different feel, almost like taking the listener on a journey.”

Ritchie Blackmore: “The recording sessions for ‘Who Do We Think We Are’ were tough. There was a lot of tension in the band, but ‘Woman from Tokyo’ was one of the moments where things came together well.”

Woman from Tokyo

Fly into the rising sun
Faces, smiling everyone
Yeah, she is a whole new tradition
I feel it in my heart

My woman from Tokyo
She makes me see
My woman from Tokyo
She’s so good to me

Talk about her like a Queen
Dancing in a Eastern Dream
Yeah, she makes me feel like a river
That carries me away

My woman from Tokyo
She makes me see
My woman from Tokyo
She’s so good to me

But I’m at home and I just don’t belong 

So far away from the garden we love
She is what moves in the soul of a dove
Soon I shall see just how black was my night
When we’re alone in Her City of light

Rising from the neon gloom
Shining like a crazy moon
Yeah, she turns me on like a fire
I get high

My woman from Tokyo
She makes me see
My woman from Tokyo
She’s so good to me

Deep Purple – Woman from Tokyo

This song is all about the riff…it is a memorable riff… The song has drive and suspense. Woman from Tokyo peaked at #60 in 1973. This is one of the group’s most popular songs, but they never liked it very much. They didn’t start playing it live until they re-formed in 1984 after their 1976 split.

Because of endless touring and fatigue, Ian Gillan gave a six-month notice and stated that he was leaving the band after fulfilling all of his commitments in 1973. The album Who “Do We Think We Are” was released in January of 1973. The release generated the hit single “Woman from Tokyo.” “Smoke on the Water” was also busy that year becoming Deep Purple’s biggest hit of all-time.

After lead singer Ian Gillian left Deep Purple in 1973 they had two other lead singers before reforming in 1984…and they were David Coverdale and Joe Lynn Turner.

From Songfacts

Deep Purple started recording their Who Do We Think We Are in Rome in July 1972. At this point, the band had yet to tour Japan, but they had three shows scheduled there for August: two in Osaka followed by one at the Budokan arena in Tokyo. Drawing on Japanese imagery (“the rising sun,” “an Eastern dream”), they concocted a story of a lovely lady from that country who drives them wild.

Rome was sunny and relaxing, so the band spent a lot of time in the swimming pool in lieu of working. There was also a sound problem in the studio, and the only track they got out of those sessions was “Woman From Tokyo.” The rest of the album was done in Germany.

In 1973, this was issued as a single, achieving a modest chart position of #60 in America. It aged well and got a lot of airplay on AOR and Classic Rock radio stations, keeping it alive. The stretched out “Toe-Key-Oh” became a bit of an earworm and helped embed the song into many an auditory cortex.

On some compilations from the ’70s, this song is listed as “live,” which Roger Glover insists is a lie, since they never did the song live in that decade.

Woman from Tokyo

Fly into the rising sun
Faces, smiling everyone
Yeah, she is a whole new tradition
I feel it in my heart

My woman from Tokyo
She makes me see
My woman from Tokyo
She’s so good to me

Talk about her like a Queen
Dancing in a Eastern Dream
Yeah, she makes me feel like a river
That carries me away

My woman from Tokyo
She makes me see
My woman from Tokyo
She’s so good to me

But I’m at home and I just don’t belong 

So far away from the garden we love
She is what moves in the soul of a dove
Soon I shall see just how black was my night
When we’re alone in Her City of light

Rising from the neon gloom
Shining like a crazy moon
Yeah, she turns me on like a fire
I get high

My woman from Tokyo
She makes me see
My woman from Tokyo
She’s so good to me