It may be a man's world, but it's nothing without a woman. The song was recorded as if it were a sermon, shouted from the pulpit. It lists man's life-enhancing inventions, but the singer admits he would be nothing without a woman. James Brown developed the impassioned ballad from some lyrics written by a woman, Betty Newsome. Her words were derived from the Bible and her observations of some of her ex-boyfriends, including the Godfather of Soul himself.
This was originally called "It's A Man's World," but James Brown added the extra words to the title as a reference to the 1963 hit comedy It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.
Brown had been working on this song for years; his singer Tammy Montgomery (later known as Tammi Terrell) recorded "I Cried" in 1963, which sounds very similar.
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