B-side "Cold Ethyl" Format 7-inch single Length 3:05 | Released April 1975 Genre Rock Label Atlantic Records | |
"Only Women Bleed" is a song written by Alice Cooper and Dick Wagner. It is a ballad about a woman in an abusive marriage. The song is often mistakenly presumed to be about menstruation, and that has limited its play on radio and in other public forums. As a single by Cooper, it was released as just "Only Women".
It is one of Cooper's biggest hits, reaching number 1 on the Canadian RPM national singles chart and number 12 on the US Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in 1975. It is from his album Welcome to My Nightmare. It was the first of several ballad releases by Cooper that reached the top 20 of the Hot 100 singles chart..
Prior to the release of Welcome to My Nightmare in the US, a shortened version of the song was released as a single and was alternatively titled "Only Women" by Atlantic Records due to protests by feminist groups. The album version of the song features more orchestral movements than the single, and also runs longer than the 45 at 5:49.
According to co-writer Dick Wagner, the song's musical riff was developed several years earlier during his tenure with the late-60s Michigan-based band the Frost, but Wagner had never liked his lyrics and the song was never recorded. He played the riff for Cooper, and the two developed new lyrics for the eventual Welcome to My Nightmare recording.
Guns N' Roses (who featured Cooper on their 1991 song "The Garden") used to play an excerpt of this song in concert as an intro to their reading of Bob Dylan's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door".
The song was featured on the soundtrack to Rob Zombie's remake of Halloween.
It also was featured on, and was the title of, the season 1 finale of Pamela Adlon's series, Better Things.
Other recordings
Cover versions of the song have been recorded by notable artists including: