TEARS FOR FEARS & OLETA ADAMS – Woman In Chains | Live on Covntdown (1989)

Oleta Angela Adams (born May 4, 1953) is an American singer, pianist, and songwriter. She found limited success during the early 1980s, before gaining fame via her contributions to Tears for Fears’ international chart-topping album The Seeds of Love (1989). Her albums Circle of One (1991) and Evolution (1993) were top 10 hits in the UK; the former yielded a Grammy-nominated cover of Brenda Russell’s “Get Here”, which was a top 5 hit in both the UK and the U.S. Adams has been nominated for four Grammy Awards, as well as two Soul Train Music Awards.

In June 1985, while performing at the Peppercorn Duck Club in the Hyatt Hotel in Kansas City, Adams was heard by Ian Stanley (keyboardist of the English band Tears for Fears) while they were on a two-night stopover in Kansas City midway through their “Big Chair Tour”. The next night Stanley, Curt Smith and Roland Orzabal had dinner at the club where Adams was again performing, and they collectively decided that they would approach her with an offer for her to work on their next album, The Seeds of Love. Adams accepted the offer, and two years later Orzabal and Smith got in contact with her again to invite her to join the band as a singer and pianist.

In 1989, the album was released and the single “Woman in Chains”, sung as a duet by Adams and Orzabal and with Phil Collins on drums, became her first hit. Adams embarked on a world tour with Tears for Fears in 1990, performing by herself as the supporting artist at the start of each show, and remaining onstage throughout the Tears for Fears set where she would provide piano and vocals.

You better love loving and you better behave You better love loving and you better behave Woman in chains Woman in chains

Calls her man the great white hope Says she’s fine, she’ll always cope Ohh, woman in chains Woman in chains

Well I feel lying and waiting is a poor man’s deal (a poor man’s deal) And I feel hopelessly weighed down by your eyes of steel (your eyes of steel) Well it’s a world gone crazy Keeps woman in chains

Oh oh oh oh oh Woman in chains Woman in chains

Trades her soul as skin and bones Sells the only thing she owns, oh oh Woman in chains Woman in chains

Men of stone Men of stone Oh, no no no

Well I feel Deep in your heart there are wounds time can’t heal And I feel Somebody somewhere is trying to breathe Well you know what I mean It’s a world gone crazy Keeps woman in chains

It’s under my skin but out of my hands I’ll tear it apart but I won’t understand I will not accept the greatness of man

It’s a world gone crazy Keeps a woman in chains Gone crazy, keeps woman in chains

So free her