The Beatles: Eleanor Rigby and a lyrical conundrum
- Ron Counte
- Jul 16
- 5 min read
Ron Counte
In surveys ranking the greatest albums of all time it is not uncommon for The Beatles’ masterpiece Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band to top the polls. But in a 2020 poll of UK-based journalists by Q magazine, that classic was usurped at the top of the pile by its predecessor in 1966, Revolver. Several fan surveys came to the same conclusion about The Beatles’ finest album.
Given the track listing it’s hardly a surprise that it’s so highly regarded. Most of the ingredients of Sgt Pepper are already evident on Revolver. From the beautiful melody of Here, There And Everywhere, the driving energy of Got To Get You Into My Life, the eccentricity of Yellow Submarine and the stunning originality of Tomorrow Never Knows, it’s all there. If that’s not enough, there is also the striking string arrangements, elements of psychedelia and the fascinating depiction of urban alienation that is Eleanor Rigby.
Much Sixties music can appear dated to our ears today yet many Beatles numbers still sound as fresh as ever. There is a reason for this. Composer Howard Goodall points out that The Beatles employed a variety of well-established classical compositional techniques that were around well before the Sixties. You can find examples of modulation, plagal cadences and ‘complex’ chords such as suspended fourths, augmented fifths, sixths, diminished sevenths and others that some musicians jokingly refer to as Beatles chords.
They also composed modal music. Modes are a collection of scales that predate the minor and major keys introduced into western music during the Renaissance and that are still widely used today. Eleanor Rigby is in E minor Dorian mode and employs a cadence which Goodall tells us was popular in the 14th century. So not a typical Sixties number then. Check out Goodall’s documentary for a detailed explanation of the finer technical points.
Eleanor Rigby features a wonderful string arrangement by George Martin in return for which he was paid the princely sum of £15. It’s performed by two string quartets comprising four violins, two violas and two cellos. It took 14 takes until McCartney was happy with it. In addition to appearing on Revolver the song was also released as a double A-side single with Yellow Submarine.
Although Lennon and Harrison contributed harmonies to McCartney’s lead vocal, no Beatle actually plays an instrument on the finished track but it is distinctive for an entirely different reason. Lennon and McCartney seldom disagreed over the authorship of a Beatles song. Eleanor Rigby is a rare example.
In his interview with Jann Wenner just days before his death Lennon said of Eleanor Rigby: ‘I wrote a good half of the lyric or more.’ On another occasion he claimed to have written ‘about 70 per cent’ of the lyric. In Ian Macdonald’s monumental analysis of the entire Beatles catalogue, Revolution In The Head, he reports that, according to McCartney and band insider Pete Shotton, Lennon contributed ‘almost nothing’ to the song. So who to believe?
The song title came by combining the first name of Eleanor Bron, who had appeared in the Help! movie a year earlier, and Rigby from the name of a fashionable clothes shop in Bristol. Paul was visiting the city to see Jane Asher performing in a play there. Jane’s mother arranged piano lessons for him. ‘I even played Eleanor Rigby on piano for the teacher but this was before I had the words. At the time I was just blocking out the lyric and singing Ola Na Tungee over vamped E minor chords. I don’t remember the teacher being all that impressed.’
In the mid-Eighties it was discovered that a certain Eleanor Rigby was buried in the cemetery of St Peter’s Church, Woolton, where John and Paul first met at a church fête. It was regularly frequented by them in their teens. So it is very likely they may have seen the gravestone.
Lionel Bart once made the claim that the original title was Eleanor Bygraves and that he persuaded them to change it. One could make the argument that the dark tone of the piece is more typical of Lennon’s acidic pessimism than Paul’s more jaunty offerings. But that is something of a lazy cliché. McCartney penned several poignant classics tinged with regret around the same period, Yesterday being a prime example, She’s Leaving Home another. Both tracks also feature string arrangements.
Looking for internal evidence within the song, consider the following lines:
Writing the words of a sermon that no one will hear
No one comes near
That certainly seems in tune with Lennon’s irreligiosity. The lines appear in the second verse of the song. Macdonald tells us that McCartney had only the first verse written when he went to John’s place in Weybridge for an informal evening with friends. It was here that he and the other Beatles pieced the rest of the song together. And this, I think, is where the confusion arises.
It is clear that there were other contributors to the finished lyric. For example Ringo came up with the idea of the priest darning his socks in the night. It is generally accepted that the ‘Ah, look at all the lonely people’ refrain was a group effort written in the studio subsequently. The final verse is very dark:
Eleanor Rigby
Died in the church and was buried along with her name
Nobody came
And then:
Father McKenzie
Wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave
No one was saved
This might seem characteristic of Lennon’s predispositions. However, Lennon was apparently against that particular ending and so it’s highly unlikely that he would have written it.
In 2021 Paul published The Lyrics, an unconventional form of autobiography in which he sets out his life story via a detailed account of the creation of his song lyrics alphabetically rather than chronologically. The Rigby entry contains a copy of his handwritten lyric of the song. Case closed right? Well, no.
The note mentions Father McKenzie. We know that in his original lyric the priest was called Father McCartney. Paul changed that later to avoid any notion that he might be referring to his own father. The note also includes the line reflecting Ringo’s input about darning socks. In addition, the words ‘Ah, look at all the lonely people’ appear in black ink while the verses are in blue. As previously mentioned, this line is considered a later addition. So it seems to me that this is a transcript of the finished lyric rather than the original source document, thus not conclusive proof either way.
In The Lyrics Paul tells us how Allen Ginsberg thought Eleanor Rigby was ‘a great poem’ and William S Burroughs was another admirer. ‘He said he was impressed by how much narrative I’d got into three verses. It did feel like a breakthrough for me lyrically – more of a serious song.’ The piano-led melody and the inspiration for the song (an old lady he used to visit and do chores for) were his so Paul was in no doubt.
Given the circumstances under which the song was developed that evening in Weybridge it is easy to see how, looking back on it many years later, Paul and John might well have had contrasting recollections of the extent of their personal contribution to the finished lyric. I am sure that each sincerely believed their version of events. The fact remains that one way or another an incredibly beautiful song was created, and for that we should all be eternally grateful.
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