Re: Authorship of "Eleanor Rigby"

In article <[email protected]> [email protected] (Vic Canacci (SVER)) writes: >In article , [email protected] (Billy Shears) writes...
>>In article [email protected] (Pat Wigfull) writes:
> >>G. P. Secki ([email protected]) wrote:
>>>: Let's not forget JOHN's "Eleanor Rigby," sung by McHackrney. John
>>>: repeatedly claimed authorship, something he hadn't done for any other of
>
>From my recollection, the song Eleanor Rigby is a mostly Paul song, that
>John helped on (things such as a few lyrical phrases, perhaps musical direction,
>I wish I had access to either:
>
>1) John's quotes from the 80 Playboy Interview

>From that source, John said "He [Paul} had the whole start...he had
the story and knew where it was going".

The actual genesis of the song existed as "Miss Daisy Hawkins", which Paul invented at the piano one evening. He further worked on the composition, apparently inventing the entire melody, and had the idea of a lonely woman whose only participation in a wedding would be to pick up the rice after it was over, i.e. a janitress.

One story attributes the name Daisy Hawkins to a shop in Bristol, where Paul had gone to see Jane Asher, who was with the Bristol Old Vic theatrical company, but I don't know if this has been documented. There *is* a shop there called Rigby & Evens Ltd., a wine shop; this may also have provided some input.

Paul also said (in an uncredited interview, quoted by Steve Turner in "A Hard Day's Write") that "Eleanor" came from Eleanor Bron, the actress who played Ahme in "Help!". Songwriter Lionel Bart says he was walking with Paul near Wimbledon Common and they saw a grave marker for "Eleanor Bygraves". Even more compelling, there *is* a grave stone for one Eleanor Rigby in St. Peter's Church, Woolton---ironically the church which sponsored the fete at which John and Paul first met in 1957---though Paul has claimed he didn't know about this stunning coincidence.

The song's lyrics were clearly in flux when Paul met with John, George, Ringo, and John's friend Pete Shotton at John's home in Weybridge one evening in 1966. It's here that the story diverges.

John claimed in a 1972 "Hit Parader" article that he wrote "70 percent" of the lyrics, but in another he was quoted as claiming "a good half of the lyrics or more".

Pete Shotton describes an eveningwhere the song's melody was complete as was the entire first verse. Ringo suggested the change from Father McCartney" (as Paul had it) to "Father McKenzie", which was chosen from a phone book. Ringo also suggested the "darning his socks" imagery. George is alleged to have come up with the coda "Ah, look at all the lonely people". Shotton says that he suggested it would be more effective to have Eleanor buried by McKenzie than have an illicit affair with him; John objected, according to Shotton, and this was all Shotton recalls of John's contribution that night.

In an interview with Hunter Davies in 1981, wherein McCartney attempts to correct the world's impression of John as a martyr and saint, among other things, Paul is clearly upset about John's credit claim and says John contributed "about half a line". This sounds a little inaccurate as well, but it was said in the heat of the moment.

We should also recall that John and Paul claimed credit for songs based on slightly different criteria, as Todd Compton's excellent "Journal of Popular Culture" article points out. John based his assessment of credit on lyrical involvement almost exclusively, and from comments in a variety of interviews puts little stock in melodic composition. Paul is just the opposite; he worked usually from the melody first, then added lyrics, considering the opposite approach akin to writing "backwards".

Thus, if John had written a substantial number of lyrics for a song, or had finished the lyrics and allowed Paul to assist with or entirely compose a melody, John *still* believed that he was primary composer for that piece (cf. the altercation over who wrote the music---and how much of it---for "In My Life").

Even working with anecdotal information, it appears that a substantial amount of "Eleanor Rigby"---title, plot, first verse, and character's names, plus key lines, were written by Paul, George, and Ringo. It is actually unclear what John contributed to this song, even from John's own words on the subject. Of course he provided the house where final work on the song's composition was finished, but I'm not sure this counts as a compositional contribution. :-)

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