Woman

Woman answers James Brown's 1966 It's a Man's Man's Man's World. It keeps that song's melodies and chord changes and turns its message toward the lives and strength of women. Cherry wrote it with Cameron McVey and Jonathan Sharp, better known as Jonny Dollar, and it was recorded at Cherry Bear and Westside in London. Jonny Dollar and Booga Bear produced it, with more production from Dave Allen and Wil Malone. Bernard Butler plays the guitar and the solo, the London Session Orchestra the strings, and Jeff Bryant and Michael Thompson the French horns.

Released as the lead single from Man, it entered the UK chart at No. 9 in August 1996 and stayed ten weeks. It reached No. 2 in Iceland, No. 3 in Wallonia and No. 4 in Finland, and went gold in France. Ross Jones of The Guardian called it awe-inspiring new work, Music Week made it Single of the Week, and NME's Dele Fadele heard a feminist rewrite of Brown. Cherry has said the fame that followed was enjoyable but was never what she was after.

Live and covers

setlist.fm logs 23 performances by Cherry. It was in her Glastonbury set in 1997, issued on a BBC promotional CD, and was still in the set at the Hollywood Bowl in 2019. ANOHNI recorded it for The Versions in 2022, produced with Thomas Bartlett. The upload in the hypersongs web is the official video, the video cut of the song.