"Gypsy Woman (She's Homeless)" | ||||||||
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Single by Crystal Waters | ||||||||
from the album Surprise | ||||||||
A-side | "Gypsy Woman (She's Homeless)" (Radio Mix) (U.S.) | |||||||
B-side | "Tell Me" (U.S.) "Good Lovin'" (UK) |
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Released | April 3, 1991 | |||||||
Format | ||||||||
Recorded | 1990 | |||||||
Genre | Dance, deep house, house | |||||||
Length | 3:45 | |||||||
Label |
Mercury PolyGram Records |
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Writer(s) | Neal Conway Crystal Waters Nathaniel S. Hardy, Jr. |
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Producer(s) | The Basement Boys | |||||||
Crystal Waters singles chronology | ||||||||
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"Gypsy Woman (She's Homeless)" (also released as "Gypsy Woman (La da dee la da da)") is a 1991 house music song by American singer Crystal Waters. It is famous for its "la da dee, la dee da" refrain and its often-sampled keyboard riff. The song is widely regarded as one of the biggest house music classics and has been remixed several times.
Crystal Waters grew up in a very musical family. Her great aunt, Ethel Waters was a famous singer and actor in the 1940s. Waters father was a jazz musician and her uncle was the lead saxophonist with MSFB. At age eleven she began writing poetry and took her writing seriously enough to be inducted into the American Poetry Society when she was 14, the youngest person ever to receive that honor.
After studying business and computer science at the university, she worked for the DC government, in the computer division, issuing arrest warrants. A workmate's cousin owned a recording studio and Waters found out that they needed backing singers. She went down, got the job and became a writer and backup singer. At a conference in Washington DC she met the house-music production team Basement Boys. They wanted her to write some House songs for them. The first two songs she wrote were "Makin' Happy" and "Gypsy Woman".
"Gypsy Woman" was written by Waters with Neal Conway and Nathaniel S. Hardy, Jr. and was originally written for the American singer Ultra Naté, but when Waters recorded a demo herself, the production company drew up a recording contract for her on the spot and never passed the song to its intended vocalist. The song is about a homeless woman who still wears make-up and thinks of herself as beautiful despite busking on a street corner. The song includes the chorus of "La da dee, la da da" and a much-sampled organ refrain. It was released as the first single from her 1991 debut album, Surprise.
In an 2016 interview Waters told how she came up with the lyrics for the song:
When it comes to the song itself, the lyrics came straight out of reality. It's about a woman who stood in front of the Mayflower hotel in Washington, DC, on Connecticut Avenue. My sister worked in the hotel and I'd walk past this woman around once a week, and she looked fine. She didn't look like she was homeless. She always had a full face of makeup and black clothes and she'd be singing these gospel songs. I used think, "Well, why don't you go and get a job instead of asking me for money?" Then there was an article on her in the paper! It said she'd just lost her job in retail, and she said that she thought if she was going to ask people for money then she should at least look presentable. And that changed my idea of homelessness. It could happen to anyone. Before that, I just had to hook down. Then I read that and the lyrics came to me. Like she was singing it.