The song "American Woman" was written and recorded by the Canadian rock group The Guess Who, originally from Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. The song was written in January, 1970, at a time when many countries, led by the United States, were fighting a war in Vietnam. The communists of North Vietnam had invaded South Vietnam and neighboring countries, promoting communism. Many Americans were opposed to the war. The story behind how American Woman was written is unusual. The band was performing at a club called the Broom & Stone which was actually a curling rink.
According to Burton Cummings, the lead singer and song writer, the show was stopped because Randy Bachman broke a string on his guitar. As he was retuning his instrument, he played the notes which eventually became the opening riff to the song. The other members began playing and Cummings started ad-libbing words to go with the music. He said in an interview in 2013, “I run inside and run up onto the stage and just grab a microphone and started singing whatever came into my head; it was all stream of consciousness at the moment stuff … all that stuff about war machines and ghetto scenes, colored lights can hypnotize …it was all just spur-of-the-moment.” examiner.com/article The audience went wild. Burton noticed that a member of the audience was recording the show and told the band manager to get the tape. Later, they listened to the tape and wrote down the music and lyrics, which was then recorded with only a few changes to the original song as sung on stage. Burton continues in the interview, “So we actually kind of learned it from that tape, otherwise nobody would have ever heard it (the song) again.” As Burton sang the words to the song on stage for the first time, he was thinking about his native Canada: his love for the country and especially, his love for Canadian women. He compared them to American women as he sang, saying that he didn’t like them as much. He didn’t want to be around them. Other phrases, such as “I don't need your war machines and I don't need your ghetto scenes”

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http://www.examiner.com/article/burton-cummings-the-guess-who-legend-reveals-true-origin-of-american-woman