German / West German Singles

West Germany / Germany Singles
Data not entirely available at this time
Side A Side B
Dear ChristineOlderCapitol 1C 006 856611978Purple label. Picture Sleeve has close-up of Sir Army Suit artwork. Thanks to James McNally for this information. Thanks to Mark Hershberger for the scans.

I Can't Help ItDog StarElectrola 006-86 1811980Thanks to Jaimie Vernon for the picture sleeve graphic.
Woman (4:43)Woman (instrumental) (4:00)Polydor 887 899-7 Y1988
(Windows WAV file, 44.1KHz, 16 bit stereo, 2,015,886 bytes, MicroSoft ADPCM compression.)
Woman (4:43) Woman (instrumental) (4:00)Woman (film-version) (5:15)Polydor 887 899-1 Y198812" Maxi Single Thanks to Jaimie Vernon for the info on this issue and the 7" issue as well as the front and back cover scans of the 7" sleeve.
Woman (4:43) Woman (instrumental) (4:00) Woman (film-version) (5:15)Polydor 887 899-2 Y1988CD Single Thanks to Frank Marzano for this info. This is the only Klaatu CD single known to exist at this time (1/16/97). The scans below are VERY large and take a while to display.
CD Single front cover (522K)
CD Single Back Cover (493K)
5 inch CD Single itself (344K)
Thanks to Carsten Busch for the image scans.
Probably the rarest and most sought after Klaatu Kollectible, the German single "Woman" is the only song released by Klaatu that wasn't written by a member of the band. (The songs written by Dino Tome were all co-written by a member of the band.) The song was written by Paul Vincent Gunia for the German TV Show "Tatort". The recording was produced by Klaatu for Bavaria Sonor Musikverlag and was released on Polydor Records in Germany (a subsidiary of Deutsche Grammophon). Both the 7 inch and 12 inch vinyl discs play at 45 RPM.

THE STORY OF "WOMAN"

Here's the story of "Woman" as related by Jaimie Vernon on 1/13/97:

WOMAN


The most talked about and sought after record of Klaatu's illustrious career was written for the German TV show "Tatort" by its producer Paul Vincent Gunia.

Through his tenure at George Martin's AIR London Studios, John Jones was approached by the shows' producer, a big Klaatu fan, to record a ballad to act as a 'love theme' during "Tatort's" less than action packed sequences. Dee Long, also working at AIR called John Woloschuk and Terry Draper to see if they'd be willing to do a reunion tune as a favour for an old friend (Dee) and the money involved would help offset the trio's accumulated debts over the course of their career. John and Terry reluctantly agreed under the condition that the two would be able to go to England and record the piece - all expenses paid.

A rough demo was forwarded to John and Terry through their business manager Frank Davies. The duo listened to the tape and soon realized that the song had no chorus. The tune is very similar to George Harrison's "Isn't It A Pity" in its chromatic arrangement - however, "Woman" does have a bridge. Using dynamics and some instrument changes, they were able to get the song into some kind of working shape.

John and Terry flew to England and spent two days with Dee Long and another engineer hammering the song into a recording. Terry played drums through electronic pads. John played piano and sang. Dee played bass and guitars. To add Klaatu's "touch" to the song, Terry and Dee thought it would be clever to have a backwards guitar solo taking the song through the fade-out. When they asked the engineer to fix up the equipment to run a backwards pass of the guitar he just sat and looked at the pair stunned. He'd never done any backwards masking - ever. Dee and Terry took over the control room and proceeded to reverse the reel-to-reel tapes and cue up the end of the track; the guitar solo was then recorded on the tape as if the tune was heading back toward the beginning of the song; in one take Dee had the solo he wanted and the reel-to-reel tape was removed and reversed again so that it now sat on the machine as it had before; they played the song back and the guitar solo blurted out it's psychedelic backwardsness. The engineer was in shock. He'd never seen anything like it before...

The whole song took two days to record and was edited into a single version and instrumental version. Terry and John returned home, Dee stayed at AIR London for at least another year or two and the song was promptly forgotten. Frank Davies was given a copy of the tape for his personal use and would later comment - "Sounds just like Klaatu would if they had continued together. But where's the chorus?"

Last Update: 05/12/98

Name: Dave Bradley