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“Eleanor Rigby” (released in 1966)  was written by Paul McCartney and credited to  Lennon / McCartney

The song continued the Beatles’ evolution from a pop, live-performance band to a more experimental, studio-orientated band It was a very important move forward. both musically and lyrically, marking a  break with the optimism of the band’s earlier work, and in its place presented an almost unbearably dark cynicism

Paul McCartney wrote most of this song. He got “Rigby” from the name of a store in Bristol, (Rigby & Evens Ltd, Wine & Spirit Shippers) and “Eleanor” from actress Eleanor Bron. who had starred with them in the film   Help!.  He liked the name “Eleanor Rigby” because it sounded natural. However, it has been pointed out that a graveyard in St. Peter’s Churchyard in Woolton, Liverpool, where John Lennon and Paul McCartney first met at a  garden fete in 1957, contains the gravestone of a woman called Eleanor Rigby. McCartney may have been subconsciously influenced by that  name.

The gravestone bearing that name shows that Eleanor Rigby died in 1939, at the age of 44. However Eleanor was not.  She was born on 29 August 1895 and lived in  Liverpool,  where she married a man named Thomas Woods on Boxing Day 1930, so she was not  like the lonely people in the song. She died on 10 October 1939 and was buried three days later.

In June 1990, McCartney donated to Sunbeams Music Trust a document dating from 1911 which had been signed by the 16-year-old Eleanor Rigby; it was then sold at auction in November 2008 for £115,000.  This  document is a  salary register from Liverpool City Hospital, and “E. Rigby” is identified as a scullery maid.

Another of the gravestones in that churchyard has the word “McKenzie” written on it. Paul said that the name Father McCartney was the first that went to his mind. But then he  thought that people would think he was referring to his father sitting knitting his socks, so he  went through the telephone book and picked out  the name “McKenzie”.

This is the only Beatles song where none of the Beatles play an instrument. They only sing while a string ensemble plays on.  McCartney’s choice of a string backing may have been influenced by his interest in the classic composer Vivaldi..

“Eleanor Rigby” was  not the first pop song to deal with death and loneliness, but it  came as a shock to pop listeners in 1966.  Its message of depression and desolation was very  explicit, and the  loneliness described  didn’t mean  just missing the loved one, which is a standard pop theme, but represented  a spiritual dimension.

The song tells the story of two lonely people :a  churchgoing woman named Eleanor Rigby, who is seen cleaning up rice after a wedding and a pastor whose sermons “no one will hear”, either because  nobody goes to his church, or  because they don’t get through to the congregation on a spiritual level. In the third verse, when Eleanor dies in the church, Father McKenzie buries her:  they only meet at her  funeral

Former US President Bill Clinton has stated that this is his favorite Beatles song

Eleanor Rigby —verses

[Verse 1]
Eleanor Rigby picks up the rice
In the church where a wedding has been
Lives in a dream
Waits at the window
Wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door
Who is it for?

The first lonely person is Eleanor Rigby, a woman who “lives in a dream”, an imaginary world , maybe created  to overcome her  loneliness. She goes into a church after  wedding and grabs the rice, either  to throw pretending she’s getting married, or to take part, somehow, in the ceremony.

When she goes home, she sits by the window and smiles hoping to grab someone’s attention

The “face kept in a jar” is makeup. She makes up her face in the hope she’ ll meet someone – despite her loneliness.  Otherwise she feels mortified and lacks confidence so she puts on a smile when she meets people because she doesn’t want them to know  she’s suffering.  Her face  in a jar may also  suggest that, when  she is alone,  inside her house, she is faceless, she  is nothing

There is also a  play on the word ajar: when a door is ajar, it means it is open, so it could imply that her door is always open to people, but they never come into her house or her  life.

[Verse 2]
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?

Father McKenzie is the other character, a lonely person forced to write church services that nobody will come to listen to , and this for a number of reasons: . they don’t pay attention to his words, they are unable to really understand  or they don’t come at all.

Father McKenzie is “darning his socks”, a very humble task,  because there is no one else who can do that for him. This represents his  utter isolation and lack of companionship. The following  question  means that while he bothers himself with darning his socks, out of necessity,  nobody will notice if  they are darned or not,:  so why does he care?

[Verse 3]
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

This last verse is full of sad irony: these two lonely people could have been companions, but they only meet at Eleanor’s funeral. Even if they live in a church community, they have found  no  way to connect. Their destiny has been  living their entire lives alone and apart until one of them has  buried the other. This is a  tragic ending  full of  despair: Eleanor dies in church, which should be a comfort, and ‘was buried along with her name.’. What’s more, “nobody came” to her funeral. Her death  turns into the death of hope itself. No one can be saved

[Chorus]
All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?

The simple narrative conveys feelings of loss,  isolation, alienation, but  avoids sentimentality. The questions posed by the songs are not rhetorical and  are unanswerable. Any response is inadequate .