Woman (Oh Mama)

Album: Venus (2015)
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Songfacts®:

  • The first single off Joy Williams' Venus album, the former Civil Wars songstress said of the song: "It's what it's like to experience the beauty, the spark and strength of what it is to be inside your skin. It's a song with energy and fire. I wanted to own the complexity and the three dimensional aspect of what it is to be a woman. I'm excited about being a woman. I'm excited to be where I am now, who I am now."
  • Williams (from USA Today): '"Woman (Oh Mama)' is like that first conversation you have on a first date. Everything's kind of meta, and it's the invitation to a deeper conversation."
  • Williams penned this tribal-sounding song with Matt Morris (Christina Aguilera's "Can't Hold Us Down," Kelly Clarkson's "Miss Independent") and Audra Mae (Miranda Lambert's "Little Red Wagon").

    It was Justin Timberlake who first introduced Joy Williams to his fellow The Mickey Mouse Club member Matt Morris. (Williams and Timberlake first met backstage at The David Letterman Show years previously and have kept in touch ever since.) She recalled: "I was describing [to Timberlake] the process of getting a certain distance on the record that I was happy about but feeling like there was another distance that I had yet to go, to push myself. He said, 'I think you need to meet Matt.' Matt and I met for coffee one day, and it was immediate kinship, with immediate creative connections. It was the breath of fresh air I really needed to find myself in the solo process."
  • Williams incorporated much of what she learned as part of the Civil Wars, when penning the songs for Venus. "I wanted to take the best parts of what I learned from being in the Civil Wars and bring it into a new space where I could infuse more of my influences," she said." I got to blend in Kate Bush, Portishead, Massive Attack and Peter Gabriel. I've brought my story with me, not tried to reject it."

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