Cliff Richard – Devil Woman

The Night a Dream Warned Cliff Richard — and Gave Birth to “Devil Woman”

Sometimes, the most powerful songs don’t come from a studio, but from a dream.
In 1976, Cliff Richard — then already a pop icon known for his gentle ballads — woke up in the middle of the night, shaken by an image that would soon change his musical path forever.

A Vision of the “Woman with Evil Eyes”

Cliff had been struggling creatively in the mid-70s. Rock music had evolved, and younger acts were dominating the charts. One night, he dreamed about a mysterious woman with dark eyes and a red cloak, whispering words he couldn’t understand.
When he woke up, he told his band that he felt like the dream was a warning — a temptation disguised as beauty.

Not long after, songwriter Terry Britten came to him with a new demo called “Devil Woman.” Cliff froze.
“It was like hearing my dream in music,” he said later.
He immediately decided to record it — even though the lyrics were darker than anything he’d ever sung before.

Breaking His Own Image

For years, Cliff Richard had been the “golden boy” of British pop — polite, faithful, and clean-cut. Singing about a “devil woman” felt risky, almost like betraying his public image.
But the song’s energy, its haunting melody, and the strange familiarity of that dream convinced him otherwise.

When “Devil Woman” was released in April 1976, it shocked fans. Yet the single soared into the Top 10 on both sides of the Atlantic, becoming his biggest U.S. hit ever.
For the first time, Cliff Richard wasn’t the saint — he was the storyteller of temptation.

The Dream That Never Left Him

Cliff would later admit in interviews that he still remembered that dream clearly decades later.
He often described “Devil Woman” not as a song about evil, but about the human struggle between light and shadow.
It wasn’t about witchcraft — it was about self-control and awareness.
The “woman” in the song, he said, was a symbol of all the things fame can make you lose yourself in.

To this day, when Cliff performs “Devil Woman,” the audience feels that electric tension — the sound of a man who once faced his own reflection in a dream.

Video

Lyrics