Women and the Songwriters Who Love Them: The Top 10 Rock Songs with a Woman's Name in the Title

I have been thinking in “10s” lately.

In preparation for my latest series of messages at church on The Ten Commandments, I have been having the natural tendency to put all of my thoughts in a list of 10.  David Letterman has nothing on God at Mt. Sinai.  Along with my series, I decided to post a new “Top 10” (or, in some cases, a “Bottom 10”) list each week.

Driving around a couple of weeks ago, I was listening to one of the Classic Rock stations on the radio and heard The Police singing “Roxanne.”  I thought to myself, “Hmmm.  I wonder how many Rock songs I can think of that have a woman’s name in the title of the song.”  I grabbed an old bank receipt from the glove compartment and began to scribble at each red light.  The list became rather large, and given my recent tendency to put things in lists of 10, I decided that the subject of this first Blog related to my series called “The 10” would be of “The Top 10 Rock Songs with a Woman’s Name in the Title.”

At an impromptu gathering with a couple of fellow music aficionados, I shared my idea, and we went to work.  The list that we brainstormed was long, so we had to impose a few criteria.

First, it had to be a Rock song by a Rock band.  This means no Country songs (sorry, “My Maria” by B.W. Stevenson, re-recorded by Brooks and Dunn), no Pop songs (sorry, “Bille Jean” by Michael Jackson), and no Easy Listening songs (sorry, “Mandy” by Barry Manilow).  It also means that even if the band is a Rock band, the song has to be a Rock song, too.  Take, for instance, “Beth” by KISS.  Rock band, but not a Rock song.

Second, the woman’s name has to be in the title of the song.  This one proved to be a little tricky because of one particular song, “867-5309/Jenny” by Tommy Tutone.  Great song, but is “Jenny” really what people think of when they think of this song?  Is she the subject of the song?  Or is it her phone number?  Granted, her name is in the title, but with a “/” between it and the more well known title.  Perhaps this one should get an Honorable Mention, or maybe it should be #11.  In most other cases, though, this quality helped narrow the list.

Finally, the woman’s name mentioned in the title had to be integral to the song itself.  The question to ask is this one:  “Without the woman’s name, would the song be the same?”  How important is the woman’s name to the success of the song?  Would there even BE a song without her name in it?  Once you read the list, I think you’ll get the idea.

With those criteria in mind, here are “The Top 10 Rock Songs with a Woman’s Name in the Title.”

10. “Oh Sherrie” by Steve Perry (1984).  Written for his girlfriend at the time, this was Steve Perry’s biggest hit single, even though he was technically still a member of Journey when it was released.  It might as well be a Journey song since it sounds just like something the group would have recorded.  On the group’s next tour, Perry’s last with the band, they included it in their set.  It reached #1 on Billboard’s rock chart in 1984, thanks in part to its wailing guitar riff that matches the chorus almost exactly.

9. “Black Betty” by Ram Jam (1977).  This is another tricky one.  “Betty” is clearly a woman’s name, but in older usages, “Black Betty” referred to a rifle, a whiskey bottle, a black prison wagon, and a whip.  The prevailing theory is that it the song existed in its earliest form as a military cadence.  It certainly sounds a little bit like one.  Regardless of what the reference meant in earlier incarnations, the “Betty” in the Ram Jam version of 1977 is, without a doubt, a woman.  “Black Betty had a child (bam-a-lam)…she said ‘It weren’t none of mine’ (bam-a-lam).”  Unless this is an anthropomorphism of one of the items mentioned above, “Betty” is a woman.  The driving guitar and kick drum, however, are what makes the song.

8. “The Wind Cries Mary” by Jimi Hendrix (1967).  Originally the B-side of “Purple Haze” (that is the back side of a 45 rpm record single for those of you born after 1985), this fusion of blues and psychedelic rock is certainly the mellowest of the songs on the list.  But, come on, its Jimi Hendrix.  According to an interview in London Evening Standard from 2010, Kathy Etchingham, Hendrix’ girlfriend and muse in 1967, says that she was the inspiration for “Foxy Lady,” “Gypsy Eyes,” and “The Wind Cries Mary” (her middle name is “Mary”).  The lyrics to this song are hauntingly sad, and the guitar solo is hard to beat.  Etchingham left Hendrix long before his premature, drug-fueled death in 1970, but we can be grateful for the song she left with him.

7. “Jamie’s Cryin’” by Van Halen (1978).  This is an ode to the dangers of one-night stands.  Jamie has apparently had one too many of these, so she wisely “wouldn’t say ‘Alright’” because “she knew he’d forget her.”  She wants to “send him a letter” saying “gimme a call sometime,” but “she knows what that’ll get her.”  So she’s cryin’ not because she had the one-night stand, but because she didn’t.  Wise choice, Jamie.  Not one of Van Halen’s best songs, but the memorable guitar lick was sampled by Tone Loc in 1988’s “Wild Thing,” perhaps immortalizing it beyond its original lifetime.

6. “Jack and Diane” by John Cougar (1982).  The man of many names (John Cougar, John Cougar Mellencamp, and now, John Mellencamp), had a certifiable hit with this, his biggest song.  Autobiographical about a relationship he had with a woman named (you guessed it) "Diane" back in his hometown of Seymour, Indiana, the chorus to this song would make a pacemaker stutter.  Even Mellencamp admitted that “it’s not very musical.”  In an interview in The Sun in 2008, Mellencamp was asked if it bothered him that this was his best-known song.  He replied that as much as he would love to hate the two “most popular people in rock and roll, Jack and Diane,” they “gave him the keys to do what” he wants, so he “can’t hate them too much.”  I agree.  They aren’t my favorite couple in Rock, but I don’t hate them too much.

5. “Angie” by The Rolling Stones (1973).  It was toss up between this Stones tune and “Ruby Tuesday.”  I think this is the better choice.  Okay, I know it’s another ballad.  But just because a song is slow doesn’t mean that it is not a Rock song.  It has everything present:  guitar, drums, and lyrics full of angst.  The bigger question is, “Who is the ‘Angie’ in the song?”  Rumors range from David Bowie's first wife Angela (by far the most popular rumor), the actress Angie Dickinson, or Keith Richards’ newborn daughter, Dandelion Angela.  Richards, who wrote the lyrics for the song, claimed in his autobiography “Angie” was a pseudonym for heroin and the song is about his attempt to quit.  Who knows, but more than that, who cares?  It is just a good song.

4. “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” by The Beatles (1967).  Without a doubt, we had to pick a Beatles song for the list, but we had no idea how many had women’s names in the titles.  From “Elanor Rigby,” to “Michelle,” to “Hey Jude,” which I correctly argued was NOT about a woman.  (As it turns out, the song was originally titled, “Hey Jules” and was written by John Lennon to comfort his son, Julian, through his parents’ divorce.  I knew I was right on this one!)  The story Lennon tells about “Lucy” is that it was inspired by a nursery school drawing his son, Julian, did of his classmate, Lucy O’Donnell.  Julian called the drawing, “Lucy—in the sky with diamonds.”  After its release, the BBC banned it because it was thought to refer to “LSD.”  Lennon always maintained its innocent beginnings, but McCartney, in a July 2004 interview in Uncut magazine speaking of drug references in the songs of The Beatles, “‘Day Tripper,’ that's one about acid. “‘Lucy in the Sky,’ that’s pretty obvious.”  Is this an admission?  As you “picture yourself in a boat on a river,” you be the judge.

3. “Maggie Mae” by Rod Stewart (1971).  Another B-side track (on the back of “Reason to Believe”), Stewart says this is about a much older woman he had a relationship with in 1961.  The song really helped launch Stewart’s solo career, and even though it may not be his best selling song (that would be “Tonight’s the Night from 1976), it is a close #2.  Of all the songs on the list, this one is the harshest.  The happy-go-lucky melody certainly does not match the lyrics.  The young man is disillusioned at being used by the older Maggie, and by the end of the song, says to her, “Maggie, I wish I’d never see your face.”  Yikes.  Not exactly a love song.

2. “Roxanne” by The Police (1978).  I was only 10 years old when this song was released, and trying to understand what Sting was singing wasn’t the easiest of tasks.  Combine that with the fact that I didn’t understand the concept of prostitution, and I honestly had no idea about to what the song was referring.  All I got was the name, “Roxanne.”  Sting used the name of the love interest from the play Cyrano de Bygerac, although her name was spelled with only one “n.”  Of all the songs on the list, percentage-wise, this one uses the woman’s name more times than any other.  In a song that is only 3:11, Sting says “Roxanne” 26 times.  That’s an average of once every 7.4 seconds.  That, combined with the simplicity of the music and the whining cry of fool in love, lands it at the #2 ranking on the list.

1. “Layla” by Derek and the Dominos (1970).  Now this is what I’m talking about.  Not only is this one of the greatest songs every written and recorded, it has the best story behind it.  As the story goes, in 1966, Beatles legend George Harrison married a woman named Pattie Boyd.  Eric Clapton became friends with Harrison after playing guitar on The Beatles “White Album.”  The only problem was that Clapton fell hopelessly in love with Pattie Boyd.  What do you do when you fall in love with one of your best friend’s wife?  You write a song about it.  Clapton heard a Middle Eastern love story, popularized by the 12^th century Persian poet Nizami Ganjavi in a narrative poem, called Layla and Majnun.  In a marriage arranged by her father, Layla is married to a man other than the one who she has been in love since grade school (Majnun).  Majnun, not being able to handle his true love being married to another, left his family, wandered in the desert, and eventually lost his mind and died.  Clapton used the name “Layla” for his great ballad to signify his unrequited love for Pattie Boyd.  In a twist of life imitating art, Boyd divorced Harrison in 1974 and married Clapton in 1979.  Clapton also wrote “Wonderful Tonight” with Boyd as his inspiration.  Unfortunately, Clapton and Boyd divorced in 1989, yet the legacy of their relationship was forever secured with this, the best song ever written with a woman’s name in the title.

There you have it:  the “The Top 10 Rock Songs with a Woman’s Name in the Title.”  Please feel free to comment, add suggestions or additions, and join the conversation.  Obviously, this is a work in progress.

One thing that strikes me as I look at this list, or even the list that we brainstormed, and that is that the latest of these songs is from 1984.  That’s almost 30 years.  Where are the great Rock songs about women today?  Have they been lost in a sea of Pop rubbish?  Has the longing that distance once caused been replaced with unlimited minutes and text messages?  Where, o where, are the muses of our day?  And where are the troubadours to write about them?