You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs and piece by piece,

tell the story of how they were made.

I'm Rishikesh Herway.

Sean Marshall is a singer-songwriter who's been making records under the name Cat Power

since 1995.

In 2018, she put out her 10th album, Wanderer.

It includes this song, Woman, which has Lana Del Rey on backing vocals.

In this episode, Sean breaks down the song and what it means to her as she tells the

story of how she made Woman in Miami and Los Angeles over the course of a few years.

My name is Sean Marshall.

The song Woman was inspired by events that happened in my life that I'm not ready to talk

about yet.

The reason I wrote this song is because I couldn't find the words to describe how I was feeling

inside very alone, because I wasn't feeling empowered or strong as a woman.

The beginnings of writing it was just a few of these guitar chords that have been strumming

in my alone time.

And then I began singing.

The beginning lyric where it says, if I had a time for every time, you tell me I'm not

what you need.

I would take it to the bank and leave.

It's because I would have been a billionaire with all the different situational, abusive

times that I had been in my ears that I wasn't good enough for whatever.

...