Oh, Pretty Woman



"Oh, Pretty Woman" or "Pretty Woman" is a song recorded by Roy Orbison, written by Orbison and Bill Dees. It was released as a single in August 1964 on Monument Records and spent three weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 from September 26, 1964, the second single by Orbison to top the US charts. It was also Orbison's third single to top the UK Singles Chart (for a total of three weeks). The record ultimately sold seven million copies and marked the high point in Orbison's career. Within months of its release, in October 1964, the single was certified gold by the RIAA. At the year's end, Billboard ranked it the number four song of 1964. "Oh, Pretty Woman" was eventually the basis for the 1990 film Pretty Woman starring Julia Roberts and the 2018 Broadway musical Pretty Woman: The Musical.

Overview
The lyrics tell the story of a man who sees a pretty woman walking by. He yearns for her and wonders if, as beautiful as she is, she might be lonely like he is. At the last minute, she turns back and joins him. The title was inspired by Orbison's wife, Claudette, interrupting a conversation to announce she was going out. When Orbison asked if she had enough cash, his co-writer Bill Dees interjected, "A pretty woman never needs any money."

Orbison's recording of the song was produced by Fred Foster on 1 August 1964. There were four guitar players on the session: Roy Orbison, Billy Sanford, Jerry Kennedy, and Wayne Moss. Sanford, who later played on sessions for Elvis Presley, Don Williams and many others, played the intro guitar. Williams introduced him as a kid who had just arrived in Nashville, with a borrowed guitar, who heard Orbison was minus a guitar player, who went over and got the gig. Other musicians on the record included Floyd Cramer on piano, Henry Strzelecki on upright bass, Boots Randolph and Charlie McCoy on saxophones, Buddy Harman on drums, and Paul Garrison on percussion. Orbison played a 12-string Epiphone. Bill Porter served as recording engineer for the song.

Orbison posthumously won the 1991 Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance for his live recording of "Oh Pretty Woman" on his HBO television special Roy Orbison and Friends, A Black and White Night. In 1999, the song was honored with a Grammy Hall of Fame Award and was named one of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll. In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine ranked it #224 on their list of the "500 Greatest Songs of All Time." On May 14, 2008, The Library of Congress selected the song for preservation in the National Recording Registry.

Lawsuit against 2 Live Crew
In 1989, rap group 2 Live Crew recorded a parody of the Orbison song, using the alternate title "Pretty Woman", for their album As Clean As They Wanna Be. 2 Live Crew sampled the distinctive bassline from the Orbison song, but replaced the original lyrics with talk about a hairy woman and her bald-headed friend and their appeal to the singer, as well as denunciation of a "two-timing woman."

Orbison's publisher, Acuff-Rose Music sued 2 Live Crew on the basis that the fair use doctrine did not permit reuse of their copyrighted material for profit. The case, Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, Inc. went all the way to the United States Supreme Court. The Supreme Court decided in 2 Live Crew's favor, greatly expanding the doctrine of fair use and extending its protections to parodies created for profit. It is considered a seminal fair use decision.

Van Halen version
Van Halen covered the song on their 1982 album, Diver Down. It was preceded by a synth-driven intro titled "Intruder". For the video of the single, the two songs were joined, giving a running-time of 4:34. This was done to lengthen the song in order to fit the video's running time.

In the music video, the band members dress as a samurai (bassist Michael Anthony), Tarzan (drummer Alex Van Halen), a cowboy (guitarist Eddie Van Halen), and Napoleon (frontman David Lee Roth). Per a hunchbacked onlooker's request, they rescue a captive girl (played by transgender entertainer International Chrysis). It was one of the first videos banned by MTV, due to its opening sequence, where the captive girl is tied up and fondled against her will by a pair of little people. The ban was eventually lifted, as MTV sister network VH1 Classic would later air the video.

This was the band's second Top 20 hit, peaking at #12 on the Billboard Hot 100, and also peaking at #1 on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart.

Hindi version
The Indian musical trio Shankar–Ehsaan–Loy composed the Hindi song "Pretty Woman", which samples "Oh, Pretty Woman", for the Bollywood film Kal Ho Naa Ho (2003).