She's Always a Woman (Billy Joel (1977) 8/14/22

Elizabeth Weber is a name you may not know, but she was referred to in TWO "Great Songs of the '70s," both by Billy Joel.

In "Piano Man," which we highlighted a few weeks ago, Elizabeth was "the waitress practicing politics as the businessman slowly got stoned."

She married Billy's drummer John Small, but Billy was so smitten, an affair followed, and then he felt so guilty, he attempted suicide. He was found and saved at the last minute by none other than...John Small!

Skip ahead a few years. Billy and Elizabeth were married, and she became his manager. A female manager was a rarity in the '70s, but she was up to the task, wicked smart, tough as nails, and quite good at her job.

Unfortunately, she took a lot of crap and was called all sorts of names by the "boys club" of the music business.

And that's when (and why) Billy wrote a tribute to her: 1977's "She's Always a Woman," from the album "The Stranger."

In Billy's words: "If you look at the structure of the song, it says, 'she can do this to you, she can do that to you, but she's always a woman to me.' That was the point of the song: they're bitching about her, and I'm saying, you can bitch all you want, she's great at business and she comes home and she's a woman with me."

(Trivia: Billy consciously wrote the song in 6/8 time, in a style similar to something Gordon Lightfoot might compose).

Well, after 9 years, Billy & Elizabeth divorced, and he dropped the song from his concert set list--until 2006, when he sporadically would add it back in--always ending it with: "...and then we got divorced."

In 1977, the song reached #2 on Billboard's Adult Contemporary Chart, and #17 on the Hot 100. In 1978, it reached #12 on Canada's Top 40.

"She's a\Always a Woman" by Billy Joel--a glimpse at his first wife Elizabeth Weber--and a"Great Song of the '70s!