Remembering Sir Douglas Quintet’s Greatest Hit, “She’s About a Mover”

Sir Douglas Quintet had several hit songs, but none of them can top the success that “She’s About a Mover” made. Released in 1965, “She’s About a Mover” was the group’s first single and, ultimately, their greatest hit. When the song was released, the iconic British Invasion was still a huge thing, and this influenced how the band and their hit song were promoted.

During that time, British rock and pop music, such as those of The Beatles, became so popular in the United States that several American musicians and bands had to pretend to be British to increase their chances of entering the charts. One of those bands was the Sir Douglas Quintet, which has an evident English-sounding name and was considered as one of the most successful faux-English bands at the time.

Although “She’s About a Mover” has a distinct Tex-Mex sound, the band pretended to be British when they released it and even mimicked the appearance and moves of British bands in their live performance. One can say that their attempt to market themselves as English was a success as “She’s About a Mover” had an incredible performance on the charts, reaching no. 13 on the US charts, no. 15 on the UK charts, and a no. 1 Texas song on Texas Monthly. Not only that, but their song has also been used in the soundtrack of several films: Echo Park (1986), American Boyfriends (1989), The Doors (1991), and more, and it was covered by several artists, including Ringo Starr.

About The Song

“She’s About a Mover” was written by Doug Sahm, the group’s lead, and it featured repetitive lyrics so as to make the song easy to remember and sing. The repeating lyrics also caused the song to have a simple and vague storyline, but it’s pretty clear that it centers on a man admiring a woman who later struck up a conversation with him. The song had a recognizable Tex-Mex sound, with Augie Meyers playing a Vox Continental organ and Sahm on the vocals.

Shockingly, the phrase “She’s About a Mover” appears to be just a meaningless phrase as the song was originally written as “She’s a Body Mover.” The story behind it is that when the band was playing at a bar in San Antonio, Texas, a beautiful woman started dancing in front of the stage, prompting Sahm to say to his bandmates, “She’s a body mover, isn’t she?“. However, they believed that the phrase “She’s a Body Mover” was suggestive of a different meaning; thus, they changed it to a similar-sounding but meaningless phrase, “She’s About a Mover.” Additionally, the line from the song “Oh yeah, what I say” was said to be in reference to Ray Charles‘ famous song, “What’d I say.”

Watch Sir Douglas Quintet’s iconic performance of their hit song “She’s About a Mover” in the video below.