She's Always a Woman

The song was released as a single in 1978, following several other hits from The Stranger including "Just the Way You Are", "Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)" and "Only the Good Die Young". The song entered the Billboard Hot 100 chart on August 12, 1978, and peaked at #17 on October 14 of that year.[3] Musically, Joel has said that he was influenced by Gordon Lightfoot and his mellow acoustic guitar ballads. It is a love song that Joel wrote for his then-wife, Elizabeth Weber. Elizabeth had taken over management of Joel's career, and was able to put his financial affairs in order after Joel had signed some bad deals and contracts. [4] The two eventually divorced in 1982.

Joel stated in an interview that he was attempting to replicate the fingerpicking common in folk guitar music.[5] He accomplishes this by playing arpeggiated triads in the right hand. He also notes that the production was purposely minimal to capture the purity of the tune as a folk song.

Joel claims that the meter of the song is 6/8. This splits each measure into two full triad ascending arpeggios. The song is in the key of Eb major. It begins with singing over the chords each played without the arpeggio in the first verse, each chord lasting a full measure. In the second verse he begins arpeggiating, with each chord again lasting a full measure.

The choruses are in the relative minor of Eb major, which is C minor. In the second part of each chorus Joel switches to the parallel minor of Eb minor before returning to verse.

Billboard described "She's Always a Woman" as a "dramatic ballad."[6] Billboard particularly praised the "subtle orchestration" and "sophisticated melody," which it found comparable to ballads by Bob Dylan and Paul Simon.[6] Cash Box said that "the tune is melodic and flows sweetly; the lyric is precise and has something to say" and praised Joel's singing.[7] Record World said that "it is much like a [natural] progression of the message in 'Just the Way You Are' and should pick up immediate pop and adult airplay."[8]

A Muzak version of "She's Always a Woman" was heard playing in the background of a video recorded in the Austin J. Tobin Plaza of the World Trade Center complex in New York City on the morning of Tuesday, September 11, 2001, after two commercial airliners hijacked by Al-Qaeda terrorists were deliberately flown into each of the Twin Towers as part of the September 11 attacks. A news camera crew was in the plaza at the foot of the World Trade Center's South Tower. The camera operator, Jack Taliercio, zoomed in on the southern end of the tower’s east face and recorded a man being forced out of a 79th floor window by heat, smoke and fire on the 79th and 80th floors. Trapped by the damage caused by the impact of United Airlines Flight 175, he tried to climb down in the hope of re-entering through an opening below the impact zone, but slipped and fell at 09:38:18.[9] The soundtrack dissonance of the song playing as a man plummeted to his death from a burning skyscraper was viewed as "surreal”.[10]

"She's Always a Woman"
Single by Fyfe Dangerfield
from the album Fly Yellow Moon
Released	May 10, 2010
Length	3:14
Label	Fantastic Plastic Polydor
Songwriter(s)	Billy Joel
Producer(s)	Adam Noble
Fyfe Dangerfield singles chronology
"Faster Than the Setting Sun" (2010) "She's Always a Woman" (2010) "Barricades" (2010)

Fyfe Dangerfield, lead singer of the band Guillemots, recorded a version of this song in 2010 which was used in an advertisement for the British department store John Lewis.[17] Subsequently, the Billy Joel original re-entered the UK Singles Chart at No. 29 on May 1, 2010. On May 1, 2010, a new version of the advert aired; which shows more of the song cover. In the annual ITV poll for 2010 advert of the year; "John Lewis – She's always a Woman" ranked fourth.

The advert has been viewed on YouTube over 570,000 times (collectively from the top 3 results) since it aired on TV.[18]