“There are many who have laid with me, then got up and walked away from me.”

Thus begins one of the rarest, and some (like me) would say very best, songs that Cher ever recorded.

I’ve heard Cher’s 70s output referred to as “whore operas” and that’s an especially pointed way to describe her extremely rare 1975 Phil Spector-produced single, “A Woman’s Story.” Written by Nino Tempo, April Stevens and Spector himself, it’s the plaintive lament of “a woman who was passed around” but who has now found true love in her life, and who desperately wants and needs this love. It’s a really tense, haunting, moving, gorgeous, slow-burning number, fairly unique in both Spector’s, as well as Cher’s, oeuvre. Backed by the The Phil Spector Wall Of Sound Orchestra, as you can hear, it’s an absolute show stopper.
 

 
Even though the song never actually appeared on any Cher album (and has never even been compiled on a CD, or on any format for 40 years) apparently there was a promo release with a longer alternative version of “A Woman’s Story” made for FM radio promotion. It’s also really good.
 

 
Here’s Marc Almond’s cover version (which I heard first, sending me scouring record stores for the original single for years before I found it) from his 1986 EP A Woman’s Story. He really gives his all to this song and it’s interesting to hear his voice’s similarity to Cher’s, who I’ve noticed tends rarely to go up a note, but rather down, when she sings. Both singers, Cher and Marc, perhaps do not have what we’d necessarily call “classic” singing voices, but of course they are amongst the very finest vocalists of our time because they found a way to really use their vocal shortcomings and make them work for them, incorporating their idiosyncrasies to develop instantly recognizable singing voices.