Lyrics to
Berkeley Woman

This version of Berkeley Woman was released by John Denver in 1973.

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I saw a Berkeley woman sitting in a rocking chair. A dulcimer in her lap, feather in her hair.
Her breasts swayed freely with the rhythm of the rocking chair,
she was a sitting and a singing and a swaying, Her cheeks were red I declare.

‘Twas hard to believe what my eyes showed me then,
the color in her cheeks was just her natural skin.
She wore no makeup to make her look that way.
She was a natural mama with the red cheeks, what more can I say?

Well, I finally realized there was hunger in my stare.
In my mind I was swaying with the woman in the rocking chair.
But the lady I was living with was standing right by my side,
she saw my stare and she saw the hunger and Lord, it made her cry.

So with anger on her face, yes and hurt in her eyes,
she scratched me and she clawed me, she screamed and she cried,
“oh, you don’t give me near all the loving that you should,
yet you’re ready to go and lay with her, well you’re just no damn good.”

Well, I guess she’s probably right, oh, I guess I’m probably wrong.
I guess she’s not too far away, she hasn’t been gone very long.
And I guess we could get together and try it one more time,
but I know that wanderlust would come again, she’d only wind up a-crying.

Well, now you’ve heard my story as plain as the light of day.
It’s hard to feel guilty for loving the ladies, that’s all I gotta say.
Except a woman is the sweetest fruit that God ever put on the vine,
I’d no more love just one kind of woman than drink only one kind of wine.

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John Denver has released many songs over the years besides Berkeley Woman. John Denver released songs from 1969 to 1998 spanning across albums like Rhymes And Reasons, Take Me To Tomorrow, Whose Garden Was This?, Poems, Prayers And Promises, Aerie, Rocky Mountain High, Farewell Andromeda, Back Home Again, Rocky Mountain Christmas, An Evening With John Denver, Windsong, Spirit, I Want To Live, A Christmas Together, John Denver, Autograph, Some Days Are Diamonds, Seasons Of The Heart, Rocky Mountain Holiday, It's About Time, Dreamland Express, One World, Higher Ground, The Flower That Shattered The Stone, Christmas, Like A Lullaby, Different Directions, All Aboard!, and Forever, John. Decade Lyrics has over lyrics & songs by John Denver.

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About Lyrics and Berkeley Woman by John Denver

The lyrics for Berkeley Woman are made up of the words, verses and background chorus for the popular 1973 song by John Denver. Like a lot of songs, the lyrics to Berkeley Woman have both direct meanings and metaphorical context hidden within the song's words. All of the meanings are only truly known by the creators of the lyrics for Berkeley Woman - John Denver and any of the writers who worked with them on the song.

If you have an interest in the structure of words and phrases, you can dissect the lyrics to Berkeley Woman by John Denver in multiple ways. The word "lyric" itself derives from the Latin word lyricus, with the actual English word lyrics applied to the definition "words set to music" listed in Stainer and Barrett's 1876 Dictionary of Musical Terms. Continuing the chain, the Latin word lyricus derives from the Greek word λυρικός or lyrikós. This somewhat means "poetry accompanied by the lyre" or "words set to music." You can easily see that by looking at the background of the word lyric, that the "lyrics to Berkeley Woman" means the words set to the music of Berkeley Woman, or poetry accompanied by the lyre played by John Denver. The singular form "lyric" is still used to mean the complete words to a song. However, the singular form lyric is also commonly used to refer to a specific line (or phrase) within a song's lyrics. Hence, by this analysis of word structure, you could say that the lyric to Berkeley Woman and the lyrics to Berkeley Woman are both one and the same thing. None of this talk about the word Lyrics is really relevant to fans of John Denver who came here looking just for the lyrics to Berkeley Woman, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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