I had this single in the 70s. I was a kid and I knew every word. I had no clue what it meant…just thought it was a pretty song and the words were powerful. On my single, it was listed as “Only Women” it was shortened from “Only Women Bleed” by the record company because of protests by feminist groups.
Alice Cooper is singing about how women bleed from the heart, mind, and soul. Several feminist groups protested this song, but it was actually a sympathetic look at domestic abuse. It’s a rare song where Cooper doesn’t try to shock.
This ballad was on Alice Cooper’s Welcome To My Nightmare album. The song peaked at #12 in the Billboard 100, #1 in Canada, and #21 in New Zealand in 1975.
The song was written by Cooper and Dick Wagner. Wagner had the melody since the sixties but didn’t like the lyrics. ย He played the riff for Cooper, and the two developed new lyrics for the song.
The song was produced by Bob Ezrin using a demo that was recorded at the home studio of Micky Dolenz of The Monkees. Cooper and Wagner were able to walk to Dolenz house to record the demo.
Dick Wagner: “It’s really a song about domestic violence. It was misunderstood when it first came out. It was supposedly about a woman’s period, but it wasn’t. It was about a woman’s subservient position in society to a man. I’m a firm believer that women are the superior sex. ‘Only Women Bleed’ was a liberating kind of song.”
From Songfacts
Contrary to what many listeners believed, this is not about menstruation and it does not advocate domestic violence.ย
Alice Cooper and his guitarist Dick Wagner also wrote the ballads “You And Me” and “I Never Cry” together. Alice called this style “Heavy Metal Housewife Rock,” and explained in an interview withย Creem: “I did those songs totally out of spite. I kept reading so many interviews and articles that I said I was never considered musical. Best rock show they ever saw, but musically lacking. They kept saying I was a performer but didn’t write anything. So I said, ‘Oh yeah? Yeah? Wait till you hear this!'”
Cooper performed the song with a single dancer, and it remained a part of his stage show for many of his concerts in the ensuing years. Alice told Mojo: “I didn’t realize it would end up as a woman’s anthem. I just needed a ballad forย Welcome to my Nightmare.”
Dick Wagner wrote what would become the music for this song in 1968 when he was with a band called The Frost. Wagner wasn’t happy with the lyrics he wrote for the song, so he never recorded it. When he teamed up with Cooper in 1975, he played the music for Alice, who attached it to a title he was looking to use: “Only Women Bleed.” Based around that title, he and Wagner came up with the rest of the lyrics.
Only Women Bleed
Man’s got his woman to take his seed
He’s got the power – oh
She’s got the need
She spends her life through pleasing up her man
She feeds him dinner or anything she can
She cries alone at night too often
He smokes and drinks and don’t come home at all
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Man makes your hair gray
He’s your life’s mistake
All you’re really lookin’ for is an even break
He lies right at you
You know you hate this game
He slaps you once in a while and you live and love in pain
She cries alone at night too often
He smokes and drinks and don’t come home at all
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Black eyes all of the time
Don’t spend a dime
Clean up this grime
And you there down on your knees begging me please come
Watch me bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
Only women bleed
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