The Beatles - Eleanor Rigby lyrics
This site covers the original British Beatles Albums plus analyses of the lyrics of non-album tracks.
Information on how the Beatles wrote the lyrics to the songs on the Revolver album can be navigated from below.
Find out how the lyrics to the Beatles song Eleanor Rigby from the album Revolver were written.
Paul McCartney wrote the lyrics to the Beatles Eleanor Rigby song while playing around on the piano.
In the early version of the sing Eleanor was named Daisy Hawkins; who was a young girl who worked as a church cleaner after weddings. He decided that maybe it would be better to have Daisy as an older woman, who had been left on the shelf and had missed her chance of marriage. Paul progressed through the use of Ola Na Tungee in the song before finally settling on the name of Eleanor Rigby.
It is possible that Paul wrote the song about the social depravations of Eleanor and Father McKenzie as defence of John Lennon following his comment that “Christianitywill go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn’t argue about that. I’m right and I will be prove right. We’re more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know what will go first, rock and roll or Christianity”
It is thought that the inspiration for the name Eleanor Rigby came from a gravestone at St. Peter’s in Woolton; the same location where John and Paul first met at a church fete. McCartney has always denied that the name came from the gravestone, saying that Eleanor was from a girl he met whilst filming Help! and he got the name Rigby from a wine shop in Bristol .
From these initial ideas the rest of the Beatles contributed many of the Lyrics to the song; Ringo had the idea that the Father should be darning his socks, and George came up with perhaps the most important aspect of the song, lonely people.
Despite the other Beatles getting together to help write the song, Paul McCartney is the only one of them who was involved in the recording of the Eleanor Rigby. He does the lead vocals and is double tracked for the harmonies. He is accompanied by a string octet.
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