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American Woman

"American Woman" spawned from an impromptu jam session during a Guess Who concert in Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario.



Doing that scrapyard thing

In July 1968, Cream announced that they were breaking up; however, it was decided that they would record one last album before doing so. The band's three members—Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, and Ginger Baker—would write one song each for the album, with the rest of it being made up of live recordings.

Bruce said in a 1969 interview that he wrote "Doing That Scrapyard Thing" the night before its recording began. He composed the music—based on some impromptu chord changes he felt were "nice"—before phoning Pete Brown, who wrote the lyrics for many of Bruce's songs. Bruce told him the song was "autobiographical", and the two completed the song over the call.

The band recorded a basic version of the song in early November 1968, under the working title "Jack's Tune". The final version was taped later in the month. Felix Pappalardi produced the session, alongside engineer Damon Lyon-Shaw. Pappalardi also contributed Mellotron to the track. Some unusual effects were used on the song: wah-wah was added to Bruce's bass and Clapton's guitar was run through a Leslie speaker to give it a tremolo effect.



= Backburner = = Disraeli Gears =

Recording
Cream recorded "the Disraeli Gears demo tape" on 15 March 1967 at Ryemuse Studios, where much of Fresh Cream had been recorded. Seven of the demos survived, of "We're Going Wrong", "Hey Now, Princess", "SWLABR", "Weird of Hermiston", "The Clearout", "Take it Back", and "Blue Condition".

On 3 April, the day after their last Murray the K show, Cream had intended to fly back to England to record their next single; however, with a few days left on their visas, they instead decided to use Atlantic Records' studio in Manhattan. They were excited to use the studio's more sophisticated equipment, such as 8-track machines.

Songs
Platt considers Disraeli Gears to be Cream's psychedelic pop album when compared to the blues of Fresh Cream and the "new rock" of Wheels of Fire. "undoubtedly serious in intent and immaculately performed", but lacking in "the gratuitous heavy riffs and misapplied classical influences" that would soon become popular in rock music.

Side one
"Strange Brew" originated as a cover of the traditional blues song "Hey Lawdy Mama", which the band had regularly played live. Clapton arranged it based on Junior Wells' version from his 1965 album Hoodoo Man Blues, featuring guitarist Buddy Guy. Clapton said that the riff, however, was from the song "Everything Gonna Be Alright" by Little Walter, but shifted from a shuffle to common time. After recording the song on 3 April, Pappalardi took the backing track home and his wife Gail Collins wrote new lyrics for it, originally as "Brain Stew".

"Sunshine of Your Love" was built around a riff Bruce wrote after seeing the Jimi Hendrix Experience at the Saville Theatre on 29 January 1967. During an all-night songwriting session with Brown, Bruce played the riff on his double bass and Brown began writing the lyrics while looking out the window. Bruce presented the unfinished song to Clapton, who contributed the turnaround. Baker's drum part is distinctive for having the snare hit on beats one and three while the bass drum hits on beats two and four. This is the reverse of a typical rock beat, and therefore has been described as a "backwards beat". It has been regarded as one of the greatest rock songs of all time.

"World of Pain" is the other Collins–Pappalardi song on the album, inspired by a tree near their home in MacDougal Alley. Clapton used a wah-wah pedal on it along with "Tales of Brave Ulysses", making Disraeli Gears one of the first albums to feature the device. Platt cites the song as one of the best examples of Clapton's "woman tone", as well as him and Bruce trading off lead vocals.

"Dance the Night Away" was written by Brown about "psychedelic dancing", a subject he had previously explored with "I Feel Free" (1966). The music drew from the band's great admiration of the Byrds and features Clapton playing a Fender Electric XII in the style of the 1966 hit "Eight Miles High". It is the only Cream song on which Clapton used an electric twelve-string guitar.

"Blue Condition" was written by Baker and is the first song on which he sings. The band had insisted he contribute one song and lead vocal to the album, although an alternate version with Clapton's lead vocals was released on the deluxe edition. Pete Brown claimed to have written the original lyrics for it which Baker then lost.

Side two
"Tales of Brave Ulysses" was composed by Clapton with lyrics by Australian pop artist Martin Sharp, who would also design the album's cover. Upon meeting at the Speakeasy Club in London, Sharp said, "I've just written a song," to which Clapton replied, "That's great. I've just written some music." The two moved into a studio apartment in the Pheasantry shortly thereafter and finished the song there. The lyrics are a retelling of Homer's Odyssey while the tune employs a descending chord progression inspired by the Lovin' Spoonful's number-one hit "Summer in the City" (1966). It was released on the B-side of "Strange Brew".

"SWLABR", according to Brown, is from the perspective of a man "comparing the woman that he's been involved with [to] the Mona Lisa, but then he's going around defacing her picture ... due to being dumped." The acronym in the title stands for "She Walks Like a Bearded Rainbow" or "She Was Like a Bearded Rainbow". Bruce stated that it was musically influenced by the Monkees: "I don't really know why, something about the bridge, I think." It was released on the B-side of "Sunshine of Your Love".

"We're Going Wrong" was written by Bruce alone while walking through Hampstead Heath after a fight with his wife, Janet Godfrey; he denied that it was "some deep philosophical thing". It features Baker using mallets on the drums. Clapton said it was recorded in two separate keys, but mixed together to be "not very noticeable".

"Outside Woman Blues" was written by Delta blues musician Blind Joe Reynolds and first recorded by him in 1929. It was Clapton's decision to cover it for the album, explaining in a contemporary interview: "On each LP I do, I try and make sure that I can get in a number by an old blues man. This is to help them out by getting them some royalties – and it's also good for us, because we like to take old blues numbers and adapt them to our style." Several commentators have named it the only forthright blues song on the album.

"Take It Back" was originally written by Bruce as an anti-Vietnam War song. He said that his initial lyrics were far more explicit, describing Americans burning their draft cards. The recording includes shouting in the background from groupie Jenny Dean and several of her friends, which Bruce said may have been inspired by Bob Dylan's "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35".

"Mother's Lament" is a traditional music hall novelty song that Clapton and Baker would play at Martin's, a bar near the studio. Baker explained: "Eric and I used to do it for fun sometimes. ... We were in the bar and probably happily inebriated. The other people in the heard us singing it and, being Americans, it really appealed to them, this sort of cockney humor. They said, 'You've gotta record it,' and we were in a pretty happy state of mind, so we did." Platt writes that it is one of the few Cream songs to showcase the band's sense of humor.

Packaging
Clapton asked Sharp to design the album's cover, who in turn asked photographer Robert Whitaker, a friend and fellow Pheasantry resident, to take some photos of the band for it. Whitaker accompanied the band to Scotland for some tour dates in July 1967. On 8 July, per Bruce's suggestion, the band took LSD and climbed Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in the United Kingdom, to take the cover photo at the summit; however, Bruce said that Whitaker "forgot to put film in the camera or it didn’t work or something", so the shoot was instead done back in England at Regent's Park. These photos would ultimately be used for the back cover with Sharp instead using a publicity photo for the front.

The album's front cover is collage that Cream biographer Dave Thompson writes "epitomises the pop-art sensibilities of the psychedelic age". Sharp explained his concept: "Previously, I had traced materials from books, but then I thought, I may as well cut up the books ... I cut up [Whitaker]'s contact sheets along with images and designs from various sources ... over which I used the paints. I tried to capture the sound of the music in the cover, that warm florescent sound, so I worked with florescent paints."

The album was originally referred to by publications as simply Cream; however, the band felt that this would be too similar to Fresh Cream. The name Disraeli Gears came about when Mick Turner, one of the band's roadies, mispronounced "derailleur gears" while discussing racing bicycles with Baker. Baker recalled: "We all just fell over. It was so funny that we said, 'That's got to be the album title.

Release and reception
The album was first announced to the press in early June 1967, with a planned release date at the end of July. It was then postponed to the end of August, then to 3 November. Baker said angrily in an interview with Melody Maker: "We finished it in May. Any hang-up since then is nothing to do with us." It was delayed one more week and finally released on 10 November.

Disraeli Gears received mixed reviews on release, ranging from cautious to very positive. Melody Maker maintained their loyalty to the band with a glowing review, saying that the album, while not a "giant step" up from Fresh Cream, was "a more quality-heavy package of ... super-power".

On 25 November, Melody Maker published a letter from a reader named Steve Thomas, who called Disraeli Gears "one of the worst records a British group has ever made" and "an insult to Cream fans." He criticized the album for including both sides of the band's latest single, which he argued most fans would already own. The magazine's previous issue had run a piece titled "Cream Declare War on Singles", in which Clapton was interviewed and expressed his disdain for releasing singles in favor of LPs.