Song Share Saturday: “She’s Always a Woman” by Billy Joel

This is one of my all-time favorite Billy Joel songs. I confess to being a fan of Mr. Joel’s music, and have been for a number of years. I admire him as a musician, and a songwriter, and this was one of his shining moments. I think the main quality this song has that I like is that the tune sounds effortless. It flows and rolls over a 6/8 rhythm that washes underneath in a wave of gentle arpeggios. The tune carries you along, like a well-written novel where you get sucked into the world of the writer and his easy style, until you suddenly realize three hours have passed and you never noticed.

The first thing that captured my attention, as a musician, was the chord sequence. The verse chords are not that remarkable, but when you get to the bridge part, he starts doing some interesting things, notably the change from Eb major to Eb minor. And the simple plodding bass underneath (for those playing along, the bass goes: C, Bb, A, F, Bb, A, G, Eb, Ab, G, F, Bb, Eb… then the change: Eb, Db, C, Ab, Db, C, Bb, Gb, B, Bb, A, F, Bb) acts like the heartbeat of the song. Nothing fancy, but a solid pulse for the flowing right hand. Ahhh… wonderful!

Can I share a story with you? Please? Thanks! I’m a self-taught musician, and have been playing piano and guitar now for… umm… probably longer than some of you have been alive (gulp!). Anyway, I started learning piano on a small four-octave keyboard when I was about 14. I would sit at home and play along to records (you know, the vinyl discs people used to play on turntables back in the old days), the radio, the television–just about anything. I could read music enough to know what the notes are, but not well enough to play from the music; I always relied on my ear (and still do). So these formative years of playing on the little keyboard did more for helping develop my ear than my piano technique.

Then one of my friends at school who was taking piano lessons told me that the school music rooms were available for anyone to use, as long as the room you want wasn’t booked by an instructor and you didn’t mind vacating if an instructor needed the room. At last–the chance to play on real pianos! I would spend many a break, lunchtime, and afternoons when I should have been doing sports (ahem!) in the school music rooms playing on their pianos (and they had some nice pianos).

Not long after I had figured out “She’s Always a Woman” from the record, I found a book of Billy Joel sheet music in the library. I checked it out so I could compare my efforts with those of “professionals.” One morning during break, I took this book up to one of the music rooms and started playing the song on one of the pianos (largely from the guitar chords–not so much from the notes). I was near to the end of the song when the door opened and in walked David Briggs, who was at that time the assistant organist at the Cathedral (in other words, majorly talented musical dude–check out his Wikipedia page). He had a student and had booked the room for a lesson, so I stopped playing and got up to leave. “What was that you were playing?” he said to me. I told him it was Billy Joel’s “She’s Always a Woman.” He walked over and looked over the music. “Mmm, nice,” he said. I thanked him, took the music and left, smiling–partly because my piano bashing hadn’t completely ruined the song for his trained musical ear, but mostly because this talented classical virtuoso appreciated the beauty of this Billy Joel pop song. I love it when that happens.

If you’ve not heard the song before, here it is, as performed live on German TV from 1978. In case you’re curious, the song is in Eb, but the guitarist is playing in C with a capo on the third fret. Enjoy!