APRIL 28

Eleanor Rigby

Written by: Lennon-McCartney
Recorded: 28, 29 April, 6 June 1966
Producer: George Martin
Engineer: Geoff Emerick

Released: 5 August 1966 (UK), 8 August 1966 (US)

Available on:
Revolver
1
Anthology 2
Yellow Submarine Songtrack
Love

Personnel

Paul McCartney: vocals
John Lennon: harmony vocals
George Harrison: harmony vocals
Tony Gilbert, Sidney Sax, John Sharpe, Jurgen Hess: violin
Stephen Shingles, John Underwood: viola
Derek Simpson, Norman Jones: cello

‘Eleanor Rigby’, which originally appeared on the Revolver album and on a double a-side single with ‘Yellow Submarine’, is justifiably held as a one of The Beatles’ truly timeless compositions.

I don’t like supposing that somebody like Jesus was alive now and pretending and imagining what he’d do. But if he was Jesus and he held that he was the real Jesus that had the same views as before – well, ‘Eleanor Rigby’ wouldn’t mean that much to him.

John Lennon, Chicago Press Conference, 11 August 1966
Anthology

Paul McCartney came up with the initial idea in the music room in the basement of Jane Asher’s family home in Wimpole Street, London.

I wrote it at the piano, just vamping an E minor chord; letting that stay as a vamp and putting a melody over it, just danced over the top of it. It has almost Asian Indian rhythms.

Paul McCartney
Many Years From Now, Barry Miles

As with ‘Yesterday’ before it, McCartney didn’t have lyrics at first, and improvised sounds and words to fill the lines. An early version was heard by musician Donovan at his flat in London’s Maida Vale.

One day I was on my own in the pad running through a few tunes on my Uher tape recorder. The doorbell rang. It was Paul on his own. We jammed a bit. He played me a tune about a strange chap called ‘Ola Na Tungee’.

‘Ola Na Tungee/Blowing his mind in the dark/With a pipe full of clay/No one can say.’

Donovan
Many Years From Now, Barry Miles

The lyrics eventually took shape back in Wimpole Street. A breakthrough came for McCartney with the idea of a wedding in the church.

While I was fiddling on a chord some words came out: ‘Dazzie-de-da-zu picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been…’ This idea of someone picking up rice after a wedding took it in that poignant direction, into a ‘lonely people’ direction.

Paul McCartney
Anthology

For a time McCartney settled on the name Miss Daisy Hawkins, but rejected it for its lack of realism. He took the name Rigby from a shop in Bristol: Rigby & Evens Ltd, Wine & Spirit Shippers. He spotted the name while visiting Jane Asher, who was appearing in The Happiest Days Of Your Life at the Bristol Old Vic theatre. The name Eleanor was after Eleanor Bron, who played the female lead in Help!.

I thought, I swear, that I made up the name Eleanor Rigby like that. I remember quite distinctly having the name Eleanor, looking around for a believable surname and then wandering around the docklands in Bristol and seeing the shop there. But it seems that up in Woolton Cemetery, where I used to hang out a lot with John, there’s a gravestone to an Eleanor Rigby. Apparently, a few yards to the right there’s someone called McKenzie.

Paul McCartney
Anthology

The Woolton Cemetery adjoins St Peter’s Church in Liverpool. The church was where McCartney was first introduced to Lennon, prior to a performance by The Quarrymen on 6 July 1957.

The real Eleanor Rigby was born in 1895 and lived in Liverpool, where she married a man named Thomas Woods. She died on 10 October 1939 at the age of 44 and was buried along with the bodies of her grandfather John Rigby, his wife Frances and their daughter Doris. The tombstone has since become a landmark for Beatles fans visiting Liverpool.

In 2008 a 1911 document bearing the signature of E Rigby, then a 16-year-old scullery maid at Liverpool’s City Hospital, was auctioned to raise money for the Sunbeams Music Trust. The document had been donated to the charity by Paul McCartney in 1990.

With just the first verse of ‘Eleanor Rigby’ complete, McCartney took the song to John Lennon’s house in Weybridge. There, he and the other Beatles, along with Lennon’s school friend Pete Shotton, suggested ideas to help the song take shape.

Ringo Starr suggested that the renamed Father McKenzie be “darning his socks in the night”. The “Ah, look at all the lonely people” refrain was reportedly coined by George Harrison, and the final verse – where the lonely Rigby and McKenzie are united through death – was suggested by Shotton and later written by McCartney.

I had Father McCartney as the priest just because I knew that was right for the syllables, but I knew I didn’t want it even though John liked it so we opened the telephone book, went to McCartney and look what followed it, and shortly after, it was McKenzie. I thought, Oh, that’s good. It wasn’t written about anyone. A man appeared, who died a few years ago, who said, ‘I’m Father McKenzie.’ Anyone who was called Father McKenzie and had any slim contact with The Beatles quite naturally would think, Well, I spoke to Paul and he might easily have written that about me; or he may have spoken to John and thought John thought it up. John wanted to stay McCartney, but I said, ‘No, it’s my dad! Father McCartney.’ He said, ‘It’s good, it works fine.’ I agreed it worked, but I didn’t want to sing that, it was too loaded, it asked too many questions. I wanted it to be anonymous. John helped me on a few words but I’d put it down 80-20 to me, something like that.

Paul McCartney
Many Years From Now, Barry Miles

 

John Lennon claimed to have written “about 70 per cent” of the words for ‘Eleanor Rigby’, although in separate accounts Paul McCartney and Pete Shotton both remember otherwise. Shotton described Lennon’s contribution as “virtually nil”.

 

Ah, the first verse was his and the rest are basically mine. But the way he did it… Well, he knew he had a song. But by that time he didn’t want to ask for my help, and we were sitting around with Mal Evans and Neil Aspinall, so he said to us, ‘Hey, you guys, finish up the lyrics.’

Now I was there with Mal, a telephone installer who was our road manager, and Neil, who was a student accountant, and I was insulted and hurt that Paul had just thrown it out in the aid. He actually meant he wanted me to do it, and of course there isn’t a line of theirs in the song because I finally went off to a room with Paul and we finished the song. But that’s how… that’s the kind of insensitivity he would have, which upset me in later years. That’s the kind of person he is. ‘Here, finish these lyrics up,’ like to anybody who was around.

Oh, he had the whole start: ‘Eleanor Rigby picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been.’ And he had the story and knew where it was going. So we had to work out, ‘Well, is there anybody else in this story?’ We came up with Father McCartney for a bit, but Paul said his dad would be upset, so we made it into McKenzie, even though McCartney sounded better. And then we went on to new characters… It’s hard to describe, even with the clarity of memory, the moment the apple falls. The thing will start moving along at a speed of its own, then you wake up at the end of it and have this whole thing on paper, you know? Who said what to whom as we were writing, I don’t know.

I do know that George Harrison was there when we came up with ‘Ah, look at all the lonely people.’ He and George were settling on that as I left the studio to go to the toilet, and I heard the lyric and turned around and said, ‘That’s it!’

John Lennon, 1980
All We Are Saying, David Sheff

Paul McCartney recorded a demo of ‘Eleanor Rigby’ at the Ashers’ house. He later claimed that Marianne Faithfull expressed an interest in recording the song after she and Mick Jagger were played the demo.

I remember thinking to myself, What am I going to do when I’m thirty? Thirty was the big age. Will I still be in a group? I remember being round at John Dunbar’s house, having a very clear vision of myself in a herringbone jacket with leather elbow patches and a pipe, thinking ‘Eleanor Rigby’, this could be a way I could go, I could become a more serious writer, not so much a pop writer.

Paul McCartney
Many Years From Now, Barry Miles

In the studio

Recording began on 28 April 1966. With a score by George Martin, and inspired by the music written by Bernard Herrmann for the Truffaut film Farenheit 451, no Beatles played on the record. Instead a closely-miked string octet was recorded in 14 takes, after which Paul overdubbed his lead vocals.

The violins backing was Paul’s idea. Jane Asher had turned him on to Vivaldi, and it was very good, the violins, straight out of Vivaldi. I can’t take any credit for that, a-tall.

John Lennon, 1980
All We Are Saying, David Sheff

On 29 April McCartney added more vocals, and he, Lennon and Harrison provided harmonies. The song was then considered complete until 6 June, when Paul added one more vocal part.

George Martin’s score was released in 1996 unadorned by vocals, on Anthology 2. The song also appeared in remix form on the Love album.

Chart success

The double a-side single ‘Eleanor Rigby’/‘Yellow Submarine’ was released in the UK on 5 August 1966, the same day as Revolver.

The single entered the charts on 10 August at number two. The following week it reached the top, where it remained for four weeks.

In America it fared less well. Released on 8 August 1966, it charted at number 11 and spent six weeks in the top 40.

The US single peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 and Cashbox charts; this has been attributed to the downbeat subject matter, and also the fallout from John Lennon’s “more popular than Jesus” comments.

‘Eleanor Rigby’ was nominated for three Grammy awards in 1966, and won the Best Contemporary Rock and Roll Vocal Performance, Male.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/6gluNoLVKiQ?si=JdHvlFFKKH2hWU_I" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>