Deep Purple Woman from Tokyo is the song that saved a troubled album, written in Rome before the band had even set foot in Japan, and it became one of the most beloved tracks in the entire Deep Purple catalog despite the band’s own mixed feelings about it.
Deep Purple Machine Head era — the lineup that recorded Woman from Tokyo
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▼ Quick Navigation
- What Is Deep Purple Woman from Tokyo
- Written in Rome Before the Band Saw Japan
- The Rome Swimming Pool Sessions
- A Band Running on Empty
- How Woman from Tokyo Was Recorded
- Jon Lord’s Hammond Organ as a Rhythm Guitar
- Deep Purple Woman from Tokyo as a Single
- The Song the Band Didn’t Much Like
- From Rarely Played to Permanent Live Staple
- People Also Ask
- Watch Deep Purple Woman from Tokyo Live
- Deep Purple Woman from Tokyo Legacy
- You Might Also Like
- Get Deep Purple Albums on Amazon
What Is Deep Purple Woman from Tokyo
Deep Purple Woman from Tokyo is the lead single and opening track from Who Do We Think We Are, the band’s seventh studio album, released January 12, 1973 in the US and February 1973 in the UK.
The song runs 5 minutes and 48 seconds and features one of Ritchie Blackmore’s most memorable riffs of the entire Mk II era.
It is credited to all five members: Ritchie Blackmore, Ian Gillan, Roger Glover, Jon Lord, and Ian Paice.
Deep Purple Woman from Tokyo reached number four on the UK Albums Chart when the album was released, driven almost entirely by the strength of the single.
The song became a permanent fixture in the band’s live set from the 1984 reunion onward, long after the lineup that recorded it had broken apart.
Written in Rome Before the Band Had Seen Japan
One of the most interesting facts about Deep Purple Woman from Tokyo is that the band had never been to Japan when they wrote it.
The song was recorded in Rome in July 1972, during sessions for Who Do We Think We Are.
At that point, Deep Purple had three shows scheduled in Japan for August: two in Osaka and one at the Budokan arena in Tokyo.
They had not yet made those dates.
Gillan drew on Japanese imagery, the rising sun, an eastern dream, the anticipation of somewhere they had never been, to construct a lyric about a country they were about to visit for the first time.
Blackmore confirmed the anticipatory nature of the song: “We were about to go to Japan, and it was an incredible experience for us. The song came out of our admiration for the country and the fans there.”
The fact that they wrote about Japan before seeing it gives the song a quality of romantic projection that post-visit tourism writing rarely achieves.
The Rome Swimming Pool Sessions
The recording conditions in Rome in July 1972 were not conducive to serious work.
Rome was sunny and relaxed, and the band spent more time in the swimming pool than in the studio.
There was also a significant sound problem in the Roman studio that made recording difficult.
The combined effect of heat, leisure, and technical problems meant that the entire Rome session produced only one finished track: Woman from Tokyo.
Everything else on Who Do We Think We Are was recorded later in Frankfurt, Germany in October 1972.
Ian Paice later recalled that when he hears Woman from Tokyo, he thinks of Rome, the swimming pool, and the single track that emerged from what should have been a productive block of sessions.
The song is the only evidence that the band was ever in Rome at all.
A Band Running on Empty
Deep Purple Woman from Tokyo was written and recorded during one of the most exhausting periods in the band’s history.
Between 1970 and 1972, the Mk II lineup had recorded four studio albums, released a double-live classic in Made in Japan, put out multiple non-album singles, and toured relentlessly across Europe, North America, and Asia.
When they gathered in Rome to start Who Do We Think We Are in July 1972, it was just seven months after recording Machine Head in Montreux.
Jon Lord later said plainly: “We had burned out. We were working non-stop. It was a treadmill and it was wearing us down.”
Management refused to give the band a break, pushing them to continue recording and touring despite the obvious deterioration in band relationships.
Ritchie Blackmore and Ian Gillan were barely communicating by this point, and the band often recorded their parts separately, overdubbing pieces rather than playing together.
That Woman from Tokyo emerged as a strong track under these conditions is remarkable.
How Deep Purple Woman from Tokyo Was Recorded
Woman from Tokyo was recorded in July 1972 in Rome using the Rolling Stones Mobile Studio, the same recording unit that had captured Machine Head in Montreux seven months earlier.
It was the first track recorded during the Who Do We Think We Are sessions and the only one completed during the Italian leg.
Blackmore built the song around a strong central riff and a contrasting middle section that he described as giving the listener “a different feel, almost like taking them on a journey.”
The middle section’s harmonic shift is one of the most distinctive structural moves in the Deep Purple catalog, lifting the song out of straight hard rock into something more melodically varied.
Jon Lord’s Hammond Organ as a Rhythm Guitar
One of the technical highlights of Deep Purple Woman from Tokyo is Jon Lord’s approach to his Hammond B3 organ on the track.
Lord cranked the overdrive on the Hammond to the point where it sounds like a distorted rhythm guitar in places rather than a keyboard instrument.
He also added wind sounds from a synthesizer during the bridge section and demonstrated his piano playing alongside the organ work.
The result is one of the most sonically layered performances Lord recorded during the Mk II era.
At a time when the band was working separately and under strain, Lord’s contribution to Woman from Tokyo was one of the strongest individual performances on the album.
Deep Purple Woman from Tokyo as a Single
A UK single release was planned for February 1973 but was cancelled.
The song was released as a single in the United States in January 1973, backed with Super Trouper.
It was re-released as a US single in August 1973 to capitalize on the success of Smoke on the Water, which had broken through on American radio during the spring of that year.
The timing of the re-release gave Woman from Tokyo a second commercial run in the US market that the original release had not achieved.
The album Who Do We Think We Are reached number four in the UK and number 15 in the US with gold certification, driven significantly by the strength of Woman from Tokyo as its lead track.
The Song the Band Didn’t Much Like
Despite Woman from Tokyo’s commercial success and enduring fan popularity, the members of Deep Purple did not have much affinity for the song during the years they recorded it.
It was scarcely played in concert during the 1970s, with the band preferring to focus on the Machine Head material that audiences were responding to more directly.
The song’s absence from setlists during the original Mk II run stands in sharp contrast to its later prominence as a fan favorite.
Gillan and the band members who were most burned out during the recording sessions associated the track with that period of exhaustion and tension rather than with the music itself.
Distance improved their relationship with it considerably.
From Rarely Played to Permanent Live Staple
When the Mk II lineup reformed for the Perfect Strangers album and tour in 1984, Woman from Tokyo was added to the setlist and received the response a decade of radio play had built for it.
Audiences who had been listening to the song on album and radio for ten years responded to it with an enthusiasm that surprised even the band.
From 1984 onward, Woman from Tokyo became a permanent fixture in Deep Purple setlists and has remained so through every subsequent lineup change.
The current Deep Purple lineup, featuring Simon McBride on guitar, continues to perform it regularly.
A song that the band barely played in its own decade has outlasted everything around it.
People Also Ask About Deep Purple Woman from Tokyo
What album is Woman from Tokyo on?
Woman from Tokyo is the opening track on Who Do We Think We Are, released January 12, 1973 in the US and February 1973 in the UK.
Was Woman from Tokyo written about Japan?
Yes, but the band had not yet visited Japan when they wrote it. It was recorded in Rome in July 1972, ahead of their first Japanese tour dates scheduled for August that year.
Did Woman from Tokyo chart?
Who Do We Think We Are reached number four in the UK. A UK single was planned but cancelled. The US single was released twice: January 1973 and again August 1973.
Why did Deep Purple rarely play Woman from Tokyo live in the 1970s?
The band associated the song with the exhaustion and internal tensions of the Who Do We Think We Are recording sessions. They preferred to play Machine Head material in concert during that era.
Is Woman from Tokyo still played live?
Yes. From the 1984 reunion onward it became a permanent live staple and remains in the current Deep Purple setlist.
Watch Deep Purple Woman from Tokyo Live
Deep Purple Woman from Tokyo Legacy
Deep Purple Woman from Tokyo is the paradox of the Deep Purple catalog: a song written by a band that had never seen Japan, recorded during a period of near-total breakdown, by a lineup that barely played it live during their original run, which became one of the most beloved tracks they ever made.
Its riff is among Blackmore’s most memorable, sitting alongside Highway Star and Smoke on the Water in the shortlist of instantly recognisable Deep Purple openings.
Jon Lord’s overdrive Hammond performance gives the track a sonic density that later lineups and producers have never quite matched.
The song outlasted the lineup that recorded it, the album it appeared on, and the indifference the band felt toward it in 1973.
Deep Purple Woman from Tokyo is the proof that sometimes a band’s best work happens despite themselves, and the audience knows it before the artists do.
You Might Also Like
Get Deep Purple Albums on Amazon
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Machine Head
The album that preceded Who Do We Think We Are to number one in the UK
Highway Star, Smoke on the Water, Lazy, Space Truckin
One of the greatest hard rock albums ever made
Made in Japan
Recorded in Japan during the same 1972 tour that inspired Woman from Tokyo
The Mk II lineup at their live peak
The greatest hard rock live album ever recorded
Deep Purple in Rock
Where the Mk II era began, three years before it ended
Speed King, Child in Time, Black Night bonus track
25th Anniversary Edition
The Very Best of Deep Purple
Woman from Tokyo, Highway Star, Smoke on the Water and more
The complete picture across every era
Remastered and essential
Deep Purple Woman from Tokyo is the song that outlasted the lineup that barely played it, the album that contained it, and the indifference the band felt in 1973, and it did all of that on the strength of one of the greatest riffs Ritchie Blackmore ever wrote.