Top Gear on 17 November 1964, he explained that he only had "about one verse" ready on the morning of the session, finishing the rest of the song once in the studio. In his authorised biography, Many Years from Now, he recalls that the initial idea came to him while walking around the streets of St John's Wood, but is unsure whether he finished the song at home, on his way to the studio, or once actually there. Comparing it to his earlier composition "Can't Buy Me Love", he further recalls the song as an attempt to write "a bluesy thing" in the style of one of his favourite singers, Little Richard. In a 1972 interview, John Lennon identifies the song as McCartney's, but suggests that he may have helped with the middle. In a 1980 interview with Playboy, he again identifies the composition as McCartney's, but suggests he likely contributed some lyrics. "She's a Woman" is mainly in the key of A major, with brief shifts to C-sharp minor, and is in 4/4 time. Besides its two short bridge sections, the song only uses the chords I, IV and V. Music scholar Thomas MacFarlane characterises the song as a "synthesis of rock and blues inflections with elements derived from country and western or folk styles". Variously described as rock and roll, pop rock, R&B, or "perky pop-blues", the song is a long-form blues number with a four-bar bridge. Musicologist Walter Everett characterises the format as structurally similar to "Can't Buy Me Love", joining a minor pentatonic verse with a major mode bridge. Similar to Cliff Richard's song "Move It", the verse is twenty four-bars rather than the more typical twelve-bar format, making the four-bar bridge sound especially short. Everett suggests the short bridge quickly returning to the verse creates a "formal ambiguity". Comparing its beginning to "I Want to Hold Your Hand", Everett writes that before the song's beat has been established, the "sneaky accenting" of offbeats results in an "off-center introduction". For the first four bars, the rhythm guitar and piano are the only instruments heard, with the "heavily accented backbeat" not heard as such until the bass and drums begin playing, "proving' the correct metrical accent". Music critic Tim Riley writes the "clipped guitar yelps" of the opening "tease the ear in a simpler way than the fade-in to 'I Want to Tell You' will". Rather than