Eleanor Rigby

Ah, look at all the lonely people.
Ah, look at all the lonely people.
Eleanor Rigby picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been,
Lives in a dream.
Waits at the window, wearing a face she keeps in a jar by the door,
Who is it for?
All the lonely people, where do they all come from?
All the lonely people, where do they all belong?
Father McKenzie, writing the words of a sermon that no-one will hear,
No-one comes near
Look at him working, darning his socks in the night when there’s nobody there,
What does he care?
All the lonely people, where do they all come from?
All the lonely people, where do they all belong?
Ah, look at all the lonely people.
Ah, look at all the lonely people.
Eleanor Rigby died in the church and was buried along with her name.
Nobody came.
Father McKenzie, wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave.
No-one was saved.
All the lonely people, where do they all come from?
All the lonely people, where do they all belong?




- Released August 8, 1966

- Eleanor Rigby: Paul McCartney said he came up with the name Eleanor from actress Eleanor Bron, who had starred with the Beatles in the film Help!. Rigby came from the name of a store in Bristol, Rigby & Evens Ltd, Wine & Spirit Shippers, that he noticed while seeing his then-girlfriend Jane Asher act in The Happiest Days Of Your Life. He recalled in 1984, "I just liked the name. I was looking for a name that sounded natural. Eleanor Rigby sounded natural."

- Father McKenzie: Then the name Father McCartney came to me (Paul McCartney), and all the lonely people. But I thought that people would think it was supposed to be about my Dad sitting knitting his socks. Dad's a happy lad. So I went through the telephone book and I got the name McKenzie

- Note: In June 1990, Sir Paul decided to donate (from his private collection) a document dating from 1911 which had been signed by the 16-year-old Eleanor Rigby. The recipient charity, Sunbeams Music Trust [1], instantly attracted significant international interest from collectors because of the significance and provenance of the document.^[9] The nearly 100-year-old document was sold at auction in November 2008 for 115,000 pounds. ^[10] U.K. newspaper the Daily Telegraph reports that the uncovered document “is a 97-year-old salary register from Liverpool City Hospital.” The name E. Rigby is printed on the register, and she is identified as a scullery maid.

- (This is the original tombstone from the graveyard John Lennon and Paul McCartney first met. In the middle center of the inscription- you can see the name Eleanor Rigby. She died October 1939, aged 44)