Hard Woman

Composer: Mick Jagger
Recording date: May-July & September-November 1984
Recording locations: Compass Point Studios, Nassau, Bahamas; AIR Studios, London, England; & The Power Station, New York City
Producers: Mick Jagger & Bill Laswell/Material      Chief engineer: Dave Jerden



Line-up:

Drums: Tony Thompson
Bass: Colin Hodgekinson
Acoustic guitar: Pete Townshend
Electric guitar: Jeff Beck
Vocals: Mick Jagger
Piano: Jan Hammer
Strings: Paul Buckmaster
 

She's a hard woman to please
And I thought about letting her know
She's a hard lady to leave
But I thought about letting her go

She's a tough lady to leave
But I thought about it
She's a hard lady to please
Yes she is

I gave her laughter
She wanted diamonds
I was romantic, she treated me cruelly
Where is the mercy? Where is the love?

You see, passion has a funny way
Of burning down and running low
And suddenly it goes out
And you wonder where does it go

She's a hard woman to please
I've thought about letting her know
She's a hard lady to leave
Yes she is

I gave her laughter
She wanted diamonds
She was unfaithful, treated me cruelly
Where is the mercy? Where is the love?

I'm alone at last
And something inside of me knows
I could have loved in vain for a thousand years
I have to let her go

I've got to let her go
I've got to say goodbye

How can I say goodbye to my baby?

She's a tough cookie, hard lady
I've got to say goodbye, yeah

Alone at last
And something inside of me knows
I could have loved in vain for a thousand years
I have to let her go

And time goes so fast
And new love starts so slow
I could have loved in vain for a thousand years
I have to let her go

 I've got to let her go
I've got to say goodbye

Hard woman to please, yes you are
Hard woman, tough lady
I've got to, I've got to say goodbye

 How can I say goodbye to my baby?
 How can I say goodbye to my baby?

So long, honey

 

TrackTalk

Bill Laswell said somewhere that he didn't produce one of the tracks, the ballad Hard Woman, very much. But as far as I'm concerned he did the job. He hadn't any experience with a song like that, but while I was in the studio singing live with the band, he was in the booth. That track has a lot of tempo changes, a lot of... whatever they call it in Italian. It goes slowly, speeds up a little bit and come back down. The producer's job is to make sure that everyone's playing the right notes, and also that the tempo's just perfect. I was out there trying to sing and get the emotive thing going with the musicians, to make sure they were in the right groove, the right attitude. I didn't want to have to listen to whether the tempo was wandering a little bit or this guy wasn't playing a perfect note. That's a production job.

- Mick Jagger, 1985


Maybe I was having too much fun (with the vocal). I don't know. Maybe on that one I added a bit of lightheartedness. But I think that's permissible. The first time I sang Hard Woman I did it very white and straight, without any inflections. Then I decided to take a slightly more hard or soulful approach. I thought, Why am I doing this so straight? This should have more inflections in it. Then I started to get OFF on them. But I quite like it. Maybe it's not perfect.

- Mick Jagger, 1985


When I said, I'm going to do the strings, Bill (Laswell) left that to me, because I'm very familiar with making that kind of record. I wrote the string parts with Paul Buckmaster. He'd suggest something and I'd say great or no. I'd hum, Maybe like this. Bill was really busy so I just did that on my own.

- Mick Jagger, 1985

 
 

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