Originally sparked by the successes of Rod Stewart‘s ‘Maggie May’ and ‘You Wear It Well’, Paul Stanley, the singer and guitarist of Kiss, penned a song with the specific intention of it becoming a track for Stewart. At that time, the tartan-clad singer had recently departed from his band Faces, which included the soon-to-be Rolling Stones bassist Ron Wood, in pursuit of a solo career.
For Stanley, the track, ‘Hard Luck Woman’, became a study of understanding fellow musicians’ creative approaches in crafting diverse musical styles. This was something he became fascinated with more and more over the course of his career. As he explained in his book, Face the Music: a Life Exposed: “I didn’t see songwriting as an exercise, and normally I was good as self-editing — if I didn’t think a song had a place on a Kiss album, I didn’t bother to finish it. But I was still fascinated with trying to figure out what made certain songs from other people tick.”
The song’s lyrical inspiration diverged from its origins, drawing from Looking Glass’ popular track ‘Brandy (You’re a Fine Girl)’. Even after completing the song, Stanley hadn’t envisioned Kiss recording ‘Hard Luck Woman’, intending it for Stewart from the beginning. However, bandmate Gene Simmons and producer Eddie Kramer advised against it, and the song instead emerged as a fitting follow-up to ‘Beth’ from the 1976 album Destroyer.
Like ‘Hard Luck Woman’, ‘Beth’ was initially met with reluctance. Starting with drummer Peter Criss, the track began as a folk melody penned for his girlfriend, narrating the story of a man compelled to hit the road again, leaving his partner behind, initially titled ‘Beck’. However, Stanley and Simmons wouldn’t let a ballad slide, prompting Criss to raise the tempo to gain their approval.
As the band embarked on creating Destroyer, they opted to collaborate with Bob Ezrin, known for his work with Alice Cooper and his later collaboration with Pink Floyd on The Wall. While reviewing everyone’s contributions, Criss highlighted Ezrin’s inclination to adopt a slower tempo, as mentioned in Metal Evolution: “When I played it for Bobby, he said, ‘Oh, I hear it much slower.’”
While creating ‘Hard Luck Woman’, there was a similar approach in figuring out what worked best. Although Stanley initially heard Stewart singing it, Criss saw its potential as a Kiss song. When Stanley played it for him one day, he said he “just loved it”, adding that he told Stanley: “Hey fuck-o, how about me? Fuck Rod Stewart, I’ll sing the shit out of it.”
However, Stanley still pushed for Criss to emulate Stewart’s sound as closely as he could. “I said, ‘Let me do it my way,’” Criss recalled. “‘Let me sing it. You’ll get your raspy shit when you want it, but I’ve still got to sound like Peter. I’m not Rod Stewart, Paul. I know you wanted him to do it, but I’m not going to mimic him.”
