Single:
Half Breed entered the Australian singles chart* on 13 August 1973 and peaked at #4. The song was #48 on the Top 100 of 1973.
Album:
The song is on Half Breed which entered the Australian albums chart* on 11 March 1974 and peaked at #65.
Songwriters:
Al Capps, Mary Dean
Producer:
Snuff Garrett
Record label of Australian release:
MCA
Video:
The music video aired as part of The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour. Cher is decked out in a sexy Native American-themed costume, including a feathered headdress, and sings the tune from atop a horse.
*Kent Music Report / Australian Chart Book. See About.
Songfacts:
Snuff Garrett produced the song despite his intention to quit working with Sonny and Cher. He had been battling Sonny, the singer’s then-husband, over what type of material she should be singing. Lyricist Mary Dean wasn’t aware of the conflict when she brought Half-Breed to Garrett, a song she wrote with Al Capps specifically for Cher.
Read more: www.songfacts.com/facts/cher/half-breed
Wikipedia:
Half Breed was written and performed by non-Natives. Cher (Cherilyn Sarkisian) was born in California to an Armenian American father and an Arkansas-born mother with English, German, Irish, French, and Dutch ancestry.
The lyrics were in error in that the Cherokee (like most prominent Native American tribes) are a matrilineal society, meaning a child born to a Cherokee mother is accepted as Cherokee, no matter the nationality or ethnicity of the father. A child would have to have been born in the opposite situation, to a white (or otherwise non-native) mother by a Cherokee father, to not be recognised as a tribal member.
Read more: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-Breed_(song)
Half Breed was Cher’s second solo hit without Sonny on the Australian top 40 charts, following Gypsys, Tramps & Thieves.
Lyrics:
My father married a pure Cherokee
My mother′s people were ashamed of me
The Indians said that I was white by law
The White Man always called me “Indian Squaw”
Half-breed, that’s all I ever heard
Half-breed, how I learned to hate the word
Half-breed, she′s no good they warned
Both sides were against me since the day I was born
Click for full lyrics
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