Story Behind the Song: The Avett Brothers, ‘New Woman’s World’

In "New Woman's World," from their 2019 album Closer Than Together, the Avett Brothers imagine a time in which women occupy the big roles and major positions that have historically been held by men. Unfortunately, Seth Avett's lyrics reveal, the world that these women have been handed is a bit of a Dumpster fire.

When writing "New Woman's World," Avett says, he was inspired by a soul classic, and he aimed for lyrics that would, with a bit of humor, highlight men's missteps. Read on for the full story behind the song, in Avett's own words.

Initially I was thinking about the James Brown song "It's a Man's [Man's Man's] World," and I was just wondering, like -- I heard that song, and it just started flooding in, like, "Is there a converse of that? Has the converse of that been written or thought about, or, like, what would that song look like?" And at the same time, the melody sort of started happening.

I don't know, that one I look at it almost like a post-apocalyptic sci-fi film or something, where the ashes of things [are all around], and how everything has kind of fallen apart, and how the world is in a place where there's really no other option but to just hand it over, because it just so happened that the men were in control, and we just kind of burned almost everything.

There's a little bit of fun in it, and a little bit of a wink and a nod, because it does take place in a theoretical landscape -- like, a fun landscape to kind of poke some fun at our gender, sort of.