Devil Woman

"Devil Woman" is song by Terry Britten and Christine Holmes and a 1976 hit single recorded by Cliff Richard for his album I'm Nearly Famous. It reached #9 on the UK Singles Chart in June 1976 and #6 on the Billboard Hot 100 and is his third biggest-selling single (and his biggest hit in the USA) with over two million copies sold worldwide.

The song is told from the point of a view of a man apparently jinxed from an encounter with a stray cat with evil eyes, and his discovery that the psychic medium (vaguely implied to be a Gypsy woman) whose help he sought to break the curse was the one responsible for the curse in the first place.

Notable musically for its unusual (for a pop song) combination of major and minor sound; it might be properly categorized as being in D blues. It was also one of the earliest U.S. hits to make use of Extended-range bass, reaching one whole tone lower than the conventional instrument, to include D₁.

Like many story songs, the production is quite sparse. It is heavily guitar-driven, with soft-distortion lines doubling the melody in the chorus and long, high, sustained single notes providing atmosphere over the verses. A Rhodes electric piano, drums and percussion are the only other instruments.

The musicians featured on the Cliff Richard recording are Terry Britten on guitar, Alan Tarney on bass, Clem Cattini on drums, Graham Todd on keyboards, and Tony Rivers, John Perry and A. Harding on backing vocals, with string arrangements by Richard Hewson.

Jessica Miles and Amber Zabel

Covers

• The Accüsed covered the song on their 1987 album 'More Fun Than An Open Casket Funeral'.
• Cradle of Filth covered the song on their 2005 special edition release of 2004's 'Nymphetamine'.

See also

• Cliff Richard discography

References