The Hollies Songs - Long Cool Woman (In A Black Dress) Lyrics

The Hollies - Long Cool Woman (In A Black Dress)

The Hollies - Long Cool Woman (In A Black Dress) Youtube Music Videos and Lyrics

Album: Distant Light
Released: 1971

Long Cool Woman (In A Black Dress) Lyrics

Saturday night I was down town
Working for the F.B.I.
Sitting in a nest of bad men
Iskey bottles piling high
Boot legging boozer on the west side
Full of people who are doing wrong
Just about to call up the D.A. man
When I heard this woman singing a song.

A pair of forty fives made me open my eyes
My temperature started to rise
She was a long cool woman in a black dress
Just a five nine
Beautiful
Tall
With just one look I was a bad mess
Cause that long cool woman had it all.

Saw her heading to the table
Well a tall walking big black cat
When Charlie said "I hope that you're able
Boy"
Well
I'm telling you she knows where it's at
Well suddenly we heard a siren
And every body started to run
A jumping out of doors and tables
Well I heard somebody shooting a gun.

Well the D.A. was pumping my left hand
And a she a holding my right
And I told her don't get scared
Cause you're gonna be spared
I gotta be forgiven
If I want to spend my living with
A long cool woman in a black dress
Just a five nine
Beautiful
Tall
With just one look I was a bad mess
Cause that long cool woman had it all
Had it all
Had it all
Had it all.

Writer/s: CLARKE, ALAN / COOK, ROGER FREDERICK / GREENAWAY, ROGER JOHN REGINALD
Publisher: Universal Music Publishing Group, CARLIN AMERICA INC
Lyrics licensed and provided by LyricFind

Long Cool Woman (In A Black Dress) Song Chart

This contains one of the classic indecipherable lyrics in rock history. The part after "She was a long cool woman in a black dress" is "Just a 5' 9" beautiful tall."

The Distant Light album was out for a year before this song was released as a single. Before the single was released, lead singer Allan Clarke left the group, replaced by Swedish singer Michael Rickfors. After "Long Cool Woman" became a hit in the US, Clarke rethought his solo career and came back. The group released one album with Rickfors, which did not sell well.

On the charts, this was a rare miss in the UK, where the Hollies were from and where they had their greatest success. It was surprising, however, how well it did in the US.

This is the only Hollies single without any backing vocals. The reason why Clarke is the only singer on this record is that he didn't intended the song to be released on a Hollies album, but as a record of his own. When the band learned that he intended to do a solo recording, Clarke was issued an ultimatum - he could either remain with The Hollies or pursue a solo career, but not both. Clarke told Rolling Stone in 1973: "I think with me the band feared that if I got a hit I'd leave. How can you stop destiny? Now, if they originally agreed, I might not even have left. 'Long Cool Woman' would have been released a year earlier, and we'd have done a few tours of the States and maybe would have been really big."

Clarke wrote this song with the Brittish songwriters Roger Cook and Roger Greenaway. Cook and Greenaway also wrote "I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing" by The New Seekers.