"Mean Woman Blues" is a 12-bar blues song written by Claude Demetrius. It was recorded by Elvis Presley as part of the soundtrack for his 1957 motion picture, Loving You. Presley also released the song on Side 2 of a four-song EP record. The Elvis Presley version of "Mean Woman Blues" went to #11 on the R&B charts.
In 1959, Cliff Richard and The Shadows recorded a studio version on their Cliff Sings album.
In 1963, the song was recorded with "Blue Bayou" as a 45rpm single by Roy Orbison that went to #5 on the Billboard Hot 100 music charts.
Jerry Lee Lewis made his version of the song in the live album Live at the Star Club, Hamburg. He also recorded it in 1957 and this was the b-side to the UK release of his hit "Great Balls of Fire." Jerry Lee's version differed a lot lyrically to the Claude de Metrius composition. Roy Orbison's version used the lyrics from the Lewis version.
The song was recorded by The Spencer Davis Group on their album Autumn '66 with Stevie Winwood on lead vocals.
Jay and the Americans released a cover version of the song on their 1969 album, Sands of Time.
Although the song was written in the mid-1950s, many similarly titled though different songs with the same theme had emerged decades previously. These include "Jimmie's Mean Mama Blues," a Jimmie Rodgers composition covered also by Bob Wills, Moon Mullican's "Mean Mama Blues," and Ernest Tubb's "Mean Mama Blues."
Famous quotes containing the words woman and/or blues:
“... the movie woman’s world is designed to remind us that a woman may live in a mansion, an apartment, or a yurt, but it’s all the same thing because what she really lives in is the body of a woman, and that body is allowed to occupy space only according to the dictates of polite society.”
—Jeanine Basinger (b. 1936)
“As one delves deeper and deeper into Etiquette, disquieting thoughts come. That old Is- It-Worth-It Blues starts up again softly, perhaps, but plainly. Those who have mastered etiquette, who are entirely, impeccably right, would seem to arrive at a point of exquisite dullness. The letters and the conversations of the correct, as quoted by Mrs. Post, seem scarcely worth the striving for. The rules for finding topics of conversation fall damply on the spirit.”
—Dorothy Parker (1893–1967)