The Beatles BibleWritten primarily by Paul McCartney, the bluesy ‘She’s A Woman’ was first released as the b-side of the ‘I Feel Fine’ single.
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WikipediaShe’s A Woman was originally released as the b-side of I Feel Fine, but I mainly know it from Live At The Hollywood Bowl and from playing it as one of several Beatles covers we did as a band during my school days.
She’s A Woman was introduced (according to setlist.fm) to the Beatles live set in November 1964 – not much more than a month after it was written and recorded – they were playing live nearly every day at this stage. Becoming a regular fixture, after not very many weeks it had found its place as the second song of the set, where it is found on the Hollywood Bowl compilation, and where it stayed until their last pre-Get Back live show at Candlestick Park, San Francisco in August 1966.
This is not the most famous song, and while other songs came and went, She’s A Woman held it’s place, and I think that is because it is a great way to carry the momentum from the opening number into the rest of the show.
Its off-beat guitar part makes it distinctive. It cuts through the Beatlemania screams of the audience. It lends itself to a really powerful lead vocal, with McCartney pulling out all the stops and one of his special voices.
Its not too tricky to play – I am not sure if this would have been a factor for the Beatles, but by 1966 they were writing a lot of challenging songs that would have been difficult to do live – lots of precise harmonies, unusual chord changes, tricky lead, rhythm and bass parts. So I suspect it would have been good to have a few straightforward, tried, tested and familiar rockers keep things manageable.