Whatever song or songs The Beatles planned to record during their scheduled recording session on October 8th, 1964, they temporarily shelved them in order to work on Paul's new brainchild "She's A Woman," which was mostly written earlier that day. The session was held at EMI Studio Two between 2:30 and 6:00 pm. Since their next recording session didn't occur until October 18th, it's quite likely that they didn't really have anything planned for this day and welcomed any new ideas that would fill either the new album or single that was due out before the end of the year.
While listening to all seven takes of the song performed on this day, an interesting observance is that George Harrison appears to have not participated. All of the takes contain only three instruments, which were John on guitar, Ringo on drums and Paul on bass guitar and lead vocals. The lead guitar solo was never present in these takes but was added as an overdub onto the take that was chosen as best. Some claim that George simply was not present on this day, Paul adding the guitar solo himself as an overdub. However, there is no evidence of Paul having an electric guitar that was strung for a left-handed player at hand in the studio at this time, he not acquiring his Epiphone Casino that was used during the "Help!" sessions until December of 1964. Therefore, it is more likely that it was indeed George who performed this solo as an overdub later in the session, his arrival at the studio on this day possibly not occurring until after the rhythm track was complete.
Take One of the recording session is noteworthy because John's syncopated guitar part did not exist yet. He seemed to be experimenting with different rhythm styles, starting out with one not unlike what George Harrison played on "Eight Days A Week" during their last recording session on October 6th. Take Two saw John settle into the syncopated guitar rhythm for the first time, although it was quite unrefined at that point. Ringo was also experimenting with different variations of playing during different parts of the song, suggesting that he wasn't quite familiar with it yet. They were getting closer though.
Takes three through five, some of them false starts, saw them refine their ideas further, while Take Six was the keeper. They did one more for good measure, but Take Seven showed their playing getting a little sloppier, especially John's guitar work. This take lasted nearly six minutes, ending with a long impromptu ending with the three of them cutting loose and Paul screaming at the top of his lungs. After the song finally ends, Ringo says "We got a song and an instrumental there."
Recognizing Take Six as the best, they took to adding overdubs. John double-tracked his guitar introduction, while Ringo played a chocalho, which is a cylindrical metal shaker containing little lead balls. Paul overdubbed a piano through the entire song (starting at the second verse) as well as double tracking his vocals during both bridges. As stated above, it was probably George who filled the instrumental gap of the song with a guitar solo, which he then double-tracked to add more depth. By 6 pm, the recording session and the song were complete.
The first mono and stereo mixes of the song were made on October 12th in the control room of Studio Two by producer George Martin and engineers Norman Smith and Ken Scott. Since both mono and stereo mixes were made this early on, they probably had intended the song to be on the upcoming "Beatles For Sale" album. Both of these mixes have a touch of reverb and fade out after we hear "she's a woman" repeated five times at the end. Neither of these mixes were heard in the US for many years, the stereo mix first released only on an Australian album in 1967. The Past Masters CD of 1988 finally made the stereo mix available to all.
The second mono mix of the song was made on October 21st, 1964 specifically for the US single, which indicates that sometime between October 12th and then the decision had been made to issue it as the B-side of their next single. This mix was made in Room 65 at EMI by George Martin, Norman Smith and 2nd engineer Ron Pender. They added a little more reverb to this mix since they knew Capitol liked it that way, but the song faded a little earlier, after "she's a woman" is heard only three times at the end.
To the surprise of the EMI staff, Capitol decided to add even more reverb to the song for its single release, making a very noticeable difference between the British and American singles. And, since Capitol had only received the mono mix, they created a fake "duophonic" mix to be released on the stereo version of the "Beatles '65" album, which they had done with previous Beatles single tracks like "I Want To Hold Your Hand" and "You Can't Do That." The problem was that, with the huge amount of reverb now contained on the song, the duophonic album version sounded very muddy. Nonetheless, this is how American audiences were familiar with the song for over two decades.
More recordings were made of the song in 1965 from their concert performances at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles, California. August 29th was their first show, but this recording never saw the light of day due to technical difficulties during the show. Their August 30th performance, however, proved much more successful, "She's A Woman" being chosen to be included in the 1977 album "The Beatles At The Hollywood Bowl."
The Beatles also touched on "She's A Woman" on January 10th, 1969 at Twickenham Film Studios while rehearsing for what became their "Let It Be" album and film. This version, of course, never saw an official release.
There apparently was another stereo mix of the song made sometime around 1981 since it has surfaced on the British "Beatles EPs Collection" in 1981 and its counterpart on compact disc in 1991. The differences here were a punchier vocal delivery and, interestingly, a count-in by Paul which only was heard on the master tape before this time.
During the August and September 1980 recording sessions for John's classic album "Double Fantasy," jammed versions of the song surfaced. Guitarist Hugh McCracken recalls: "I remember I started playing a little bit of 'She's A Woman' and John started to sing it. On the guitar it sits well in the key of E, but that wasn't the key the song was originally recorded in by The Beatles. He said, 'What f**king key are you doing it in?' He sang a little bit of it, but said it was too high a key to sing and we stopped."
However, according to a personal log kept by keyboardist George Small, when a camera crew came in to film some of the recording sessions on August 18th, 1980, "She's A Woman" was one of the songs that were captured on film. Sadly, the evidence of this is gone forever because of John himself. Assistant engineer Jon Smith relates: "John told us that he watched (the footage) and he said he hated the video so he destroyed the tapes. He told us that he pulled the tape out of their shells and flushed them down the toilet." He apparently was unhappy at how he looked with his hair pulled back in a ponytail and he didn't want it used or leaked out in the future.
Song Structure and Style
"She's A Woman" was written as a full-blown attempt at mimicking "the colored sound," as McCartney called it, so it appears as the most blues-like original composition they had done up to this point. The 12-bar blues progressions and chord changes are on full display but with some usual Beatles modifications. All in all, we have a structure of 'verse/ verse/ bridge/ verse/ solo/ bridge/ verse' (or aabacba). Add to this an introduction and a faded conclusion and you have what McCartney called "a real screaming rocker for the live act."
From the quick paced count-in by Paul, we see that the verses are actually 24 measures long instead of the standard 12 bars that are usual for this kind of song. First, though, we hear the eight-measure introduction with John's double-tracked guitar stabs on the off-beats played without the band for the first four measures. The last four measures of the introduction bring Paul's grounding bass line and Ringo's drums with sizzling open hi hat (and chocalho) to stabilize the song, which allows the listener to get his bearings as to where the down-beat actually is.
The first 24 measure verse begins as Ringo closes his hi hat and Paul begins his vocals simultaneously on the down-beat. Paul's melody line starts out with the hook-phrase that is repeated four times within the verse, beginning with a near-octave jump to the higher reaches of his vocal register. The chord structure consists of the usual four-chord pattern heard in a lot of blues and R&B music up to that point, but ends with a segueing chord to link with another verse.
The second verse is identical structurally to the first but with different lyrics and the entrance of McCartney's overdubbed piano. The piano work cleverly repeats the vocal hook-phrase in the gaps between Paul's vocal lines. One subtle change in this second verse is that the segueing chord is dropped since the bridge, which occurs next, begins with a distinctive new chord.
This quick four-measure bridge deviates from the usual blues format and creates a bit more tension through some changes in the musical arrangement. For instance, Ringo returns to his sizzling open hi hat and Paul's vocals are double-tracked, the only place in the song where they are.
As a repeat of the first verse begins, Ringo immediately closes his hi-hats again and Paul begins to take liberties singing his melody line, which is very uncharacteristic for him up to this point in The Beatles career. John begins to show some fatigue on his guitar chops, first evident in the fourth measure where he practically misses the first chop entirely. For the ninth measure he forgot to change chords, and the twenty-third measure contains what sounds like a muffled miss-hit of the chord.
After the segue chord and "whoo" from Paul at the end of this verse, the solo section begins. This is the first time an actual 12-bar blues pattern actually appears in the song. The guitar solo is double-tracked and perfectly performed. The only noticeable flaw is Lennon accidentally playing the segue chord at the end of the solo which wasn't needed because we were immediately going into another bridge, not a verse.
After the second bridge, identical to the first, they repeat the first verse a third time with Paul ad-libbing his vocal melody line even more. Without a need to use the segue chord, they enter straight into the conclusion of the song, which takes the same 12-bar-blues form that was used in the solo. Ringo rides the bell of his cymbal for the first time in the song as Paul belts out "she's a woman" a few times during the fade out. The song disappears just as the three-minute mark appears, allowing it to be within the suitable time frame for radio airplay in the 60's.
Regarding Paul's vocal work on the song, many fans didn't like it. "It first it wasn't so well received," McCartney said in 1965. "A lot of people thought that I was just singing too high and that I'd picked the wrong key. It sounded as though I was screeching, but it was on purpose, it wasn't a mistake."
His vocals may have been at the top of his register and at the point of cracking, but that was a purposeful attempt at emulating his hero Little Richard, which in effect pushed the tension of the song to an exciting place. Although it was nice to hear McCartney resurrect the song in his "MTV Unplugged" performance in 1991, his lowering the key to accommodate a maturing singer reduced the song to a mellow groove.
"Incidentally, Paul plays piano for the first time on 'She's A Woman'," Lennon proudly proclaimed in late 1964. Although McCartney had graced the keyboards before this time (see "Little Child" and "Any Time At All"), he played with impressive rhythmic fluidity for a song he had just written that day.
George's double-tracked guitar solo (if it was indeed him) was highly crafted and beautifully executed. Also, Paul's flowing bass work drove the song nicely from start to finish. Paul was definitely on top of his game for "She's A Woman."
Although John's rhythm guitar chops were awkward for him to master, he ended up getting through them in a masterly way, albeit with a few acceptable flaws. It emerges as the most outstanding instrumental ingredient of the track, especially with the layers of reverb on the American release.
After Ringo got fully acquainted with the framework of the song, he delivered a perfect driving backbeat that accentuated a heavy two- and four-beat on the snare, which was also played throughout by John on guitar. While the drums were somewhat low in the mix, the added chocalho shaking brought the high percussive end up and gave the song a somewhat Cuban feel.
Lennon's quote about the song having "rubbishy lyrics" is actually a valid claim. The biggest evidence is the atrocious rhyme contained in the often repeated phrase "my love don't give me presents / I know that she's no peasant." And, after The Beatles first drug reference "turns me on" we hear the tired rhyme of "lonely" and "only," which was already used last year in "Misery" and the following year in "You're Going To Lose That Girl." Could the embarrassment of these lyrics be the reason McCartney almost never includes the song in his tours?
At any rate, these quickly written lyrics depict his trust of "a woman rather than a girl," as he said in interview. He knows that she is remaining loyal to him no matter what other people tell him. "People tell me that she's only fooling; I know she isn't," he assures. Apparently She doesn't want presents either, saying "she is happy just to hear me say that I will never leave her," which recalls the sentiments of "Can't Buy Me Love." Adding to this the fact that "she don't give boys the eye" and "she hates to see" him cry, it sounds like he's got himself a real winner with this "woman."
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