Cole was exposed to the greats of jazz, soul and blues at an early age and began performing at the age of 11. Her debut album in 1975, Inseparable, won her immediate praise, with the smash single This Will Be (An Everlasting Love) (#1 R&B, #6 Pop) winning her a Grammy for Best R&B Vocal Performance, Female, a category that had been monopolized by Aretha Franklin, since its inception in 1967. She also was named the Grammys' Best New Artist of 1975. She attended the Northfield Mount Hermon School in Northfield, MA.
More hits followed through 1980, including her biggest Pop hit, 1977's I've Got Love On My Mind, as well as Sophisticated Lady (She's A Different Lady) (1976), Our Love (1978), and Someone That I Used To Love (1980). "I've Got Love On My Mind" and "Our Love" both earned certifications as Gold singles. But then her career hit a snag in the early 1980s due to a severe drug problem. By 1985, Natalie was clean, sober, and in fine voice, and ready to begin her comeback in earnest with the album Dangerous, released on the Modern label.
In 1987, she released Everlasting (on EMI Manhattan) which sold over 2 million copies in the U.S., and won Cole a Soul Train Award for Female Single of the Year for the #1 R&B ballad I Live for Your Love. This album was the one that put Natalie Cole firmly back in the spotlight, yielding three major hit singles: Jump Start, "I Live For Your Love" (#2 AC and #13 Pop as well as #1 R&B), and a successful remake of Bruce Springsteen's Pink Cadillac (#5 Pop, #16 AC, and #1 Dance). The album also included a taste of things to come in her career with a remake of one of her father's signature hits, "When I Fall In Love," which did moderately well on the AC chart. In 1989, the aptly-titled Good To Be Back gave her another across-the-board smash with "Miss You Like Crazy" (#1 both R&B and AC, and #7 Pop).
However, it was her 1991 album, Unforgettable... with Love, featuring her own arrangements of her father's greatest hits, that gave her the most success. Ironically, when Natalie began her career, she was determined not to capitalize on her father's name and wanted to forge her own identity by going after the soul market in earnest. For many years, she also found the prospect of recording her late father's songs too painful on a personal level. But Unforgettable... With Love certainly paid off. The set sold over 5 million copies in the United States alone, and won Cole several Grammy Awards, including Album of the Year, Record of the Year, and Best Traditional Pop Vocal Performance. The album featured a duet, the title track, with her father, created by splicing a recording of his vocals into the track. As a single, it reached #14 on Billboard Magazine's Hot 100 chart, and went gold. The one sour spot in the album's success was that it strained Natalie's already-tumultuous relationship with her mother, Maria, who said in interviews at the time that she couldn't listen to the album or attend any of her daughter's concerts because she felt that the music really belonged to her late husband.
Natalie has released several more albums of pop standards in the years since; as a result of appealing to the "adult standards" audience, she has made only occasional forays onto the pop singles charts in that time (for example, "A Smile Like Yours," #8 AC and #84 Pop in 1997), although her albums still sell well. Her 1999 album Snowfall On The Sahara marked a return to the easy adult-contemporary soul that categorized her late-1980s hits, but for 2002's critically-praised Ask A Woman Who Knows, she turned more to the jazz side of the spectrum, covering songs made famous by Dinah Washington, Nina Simone, and Sarah Vaughan.
Battle With Drugs
In 2000, Cole released an autobiography, Angel on my Shoulder, which described her battle with drugs during much of her life. In the book, Cole admitted to using LSD, heroin and crack cocaine. Cole said she began experimenting with drugs while attending the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and was arrested in Toronto, Canada for possession of heroin in 1975. Cole continued to spiral out of control - including an incident in which her young son Robert nearly drowned in the family swimming pool while she and her first husband, the late Reverend Marvin Yancy were on a drug binge - until she entered rehab in 1983.
In concert with the release of the book, her autobiography was turned into a made-for-TV movie, The Natalie Cole Story, which aired December 10, 2000 on NBC.
Natalie has been married three times and has a son Robert Yancy (by Marvin Yancy), born in 1977. She later married former Rufus drummer Andre Fischer, who co-produced the Grammy Award-winning Unforgettable... With Love, Natalie's love offering featuring songs made famous by her father, including a faux-duet between her and her father.
The marriage to Fischer ended in divorce a few years later, amidst rumors of domestic verbal and physical abuse.
It has also been reported that Natalie has recovered from a life-threatening hepatitis illness (most likely the cause of her years of drug abuse) by having a liver transplant.
Miss Cole went on to release more albums after Unforgettable...With Love, with most of them featuring jazz-oriented standard songs or pop-song remakes. None of the albums were nearly as successful as Unforgettable...With Love.
As of 2013, Natalie Cole spent most of her professional time covering the concert circuit entertaining audiences around the world with her hits.
On December 31, 2015, Natalie Cole died from congestive heart failure at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. She was aged 65.
Ask A Woman Who Knows
Natalie Cole Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
And leaves me all alone
He never tells me where he goes
I'm not the only lonely one
Just ask a woman who knows
We used to share our troubles
And the good times too
I'm not the only sorry one
Just ask a woman who knows
The days are long
Oh, but the nights are longer
I got the lonesomest blues
You know my only consolation
Is I ain't got nothing more to lose
So there you have the story
Of a love gone wrong
That used to blossom like a rose
Oh, I'm not the only broken heart
Just ask a woman who knows
Well my only consolation
Is that I got nothing more to lose
So there you have the story
Of a love gone wrong
That used to blossom like a rose
But I'm not the only broken heart
Just ask a woman
And I'm a woman
Just ask a woman who knows
Oh, yeah
Ask a woman, ask a woman
And I'm a woman
Who knows
The lyrics to Natalie Cole's song, "Ask A Woman Who Knows" speak to the experience of a woman whose partner is constantly staying out late and neglecting their relationship. The woman expresses her loneliness, frustration, and sense of betrayal in the lines, "He stays out every night, And leaves me all alone, He never tells me where he goes." She also acknowledges that she's not the only person going through this kind of situation, as she sings, "I'm not the only lonely one, Just ask a woman who knows."
In the past, the couple used to "share their troubles and the good times too," but now she's "left with all the woes." She speaks to the sadness and pain she feels, particularly at night when she's left alone with her thoughts. She notes that her only consolation is that she doesn't have anything else to lose. The song concludes with the woman speaking to the universality of her experience -- she's not the only broken-hearted woman out there.
The lyrics of the song beautifully articulate the emotions that accompany a broken relationship, as well as the sense of isolation that can accompany that experience. The message that this is not an uncommon experience, and that other women have faced what she's going through, adds a sense of solidarity and comfort to the song.
Line by Line Meaning
He stays out every night
My partner is unfaithful and leaves me alone every night
And leaves me all alone
I feel abandoned and isolated without my partner
He never tells me where he goes
My partner is dishonest and secretive about his whereabouts
I'm not the only lonely one
There are other women who have been in my shoes, feeling lonely and neglected in a relationship
Just ask a woman who knows
Women who have experienced this can provide insight into this kind of pain and heartbreak
We used to share our troubles
I used to confide in my partner about my problems, and we shared good times together
And the good times too
We had happy memories together that I now cherish
Now I'm left with all the woes
I am now burdened with all of my problems without my partner to support me
I'm not the only sorry one
There are other women who have been in this situation, feeling sorry for themselves and struggling to cope
The days are long
My days feel empty and dragging without my partner's presence
Oh, but the nights are longer
My nights feel even longer and more empty without my partner's company
I got the lonesomest blues
I am consumed by loneliness and sadness
You know my only consolation
The only thing that pacifies me is knowing that I have nothing more to lose in this relationship
Is I ain't got nothing more to lose
I have already lost so much in this relationship, so I am not afraid of losing anything else
So there you have the story
That's my story, my experience with love and heartbreak
Of a love gone wrong
My relationship has crumbled and failed despite my efforts and affection
That used to blossom like a rose
My relationship used to be beautiful and lovely like a rose
Oh, I'm not the only broken heart
There are other women who have suffered from heartbreak like me
Just ask a woman who knows
Women who have gone through this can understand the pain and the hardship that comes with it
Well my only consolation
The only positive aspect of this situation is that I have nothing more to lose
But I'm not the only broken heart
I am not the only woman who has had her heart broken this way
Just ask a woman
Ask any woman who has experienced similar heartbreak
And I'm a woman
I am one of those women
Who knows
I've experienced it and I understand the pain
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC
Written by: VIC ABRAMS
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind