Lynne wrote the song quickly when Face the Music was almost complete but he didn't think they had a good lead single.[3] Lynne said:
I wrote this in a matter of minutes. The rest of the album was done. I listened to it and thought, 'There’s not a good single.' So I sent the band out to a game of football and made up 'Evil Woman' on the spot. The first three chords came right to me. It was the quickest thing I’d ever done. We kept it slick and cool, kind of like an R&B song. It was kind of a posh one for me, with all the big piano solos and the string arrangement. It was inspired by a certain woman, but I can’t say who. She’s appeared a few times in my songs.[3]
Lynne described the structure saying it has a "repetitive chord sequence and then the melody turns into a chorus."[4]
When released as a single in late 1975, the song became the band's first worldwide hit.[5] According to Lynne, this song was the quickest he had ever written, in 30 minutes, originally as 'filler' for the group's Face the Music album.[5] The song placed in the top 10 on both sides of the Atlantic in early 1976. It was released again in 1978 on The ELO EP.[6]
The lyric "There's a hole in my head where the rain comes in" in the song is a tribute to The Beatles' song "Fixing a Hole".[7]
Reception
Billboard praised the use of the title lyrics as a hook.[8]Cash Box noted the 20th-century influences and "commercial qualities" of the song, stating "from the classic hookline — a recurring four notes from 'Anchors Aweigh,' through an electronic schism from a dramatic TV serial two-thirds of the way through."[9]Record World said that the song "puts rock within a classical frame and shows one of the few bands capable of a viable combination of experimentation with commerciality."[10]
Ultimate Classic Rock critic Michael Gallucci rated it ELO's 3rd best song, saying that it has "old-school strings and new-school keyboards...backing a funky dance-floor beat that drives the song all the way to pop glory."[11]Classic Rock History critic Brian Kachejian rated it as ELO's 4th best song, saying that "Jeff Lynne took a simple three-chord progression that Led Zeppelin utilized at the end of 'Stairway To Heaven,' and added his own touch, melody and production to score a huge hit."[12]Stereogum contributor Ryan Reed rated it as ELO's 7th best song.[5]
In 2022 Lynne listed it as one of his nine favorite ELO songs.[13]
Duran Duran released a cover version of the song on 9th October 2024 as part of the "De Luxe" edition of their sixteenth studio album Danse Macabre.[30]
^"The ELO EP". Discogs. December 1978. Retrieved 3 May 2023.
^Spicer, Mark (2018). "The Electric Light Orchestra and the Anxiety of the Beatles' Influence". In Burns, Lori; Lacasse, Serge (eds.). The Pop Palimpsest: Intertextuality in Recorded Popular Music. University of Michigan Press. p. 130. ISBN9780472130672.
