And they say Paul could only write silly love songs.

George Harrison came up with the "Ah, look at all the lonely people" hook.

Anyone else a fan of Revolver? ✋

I adore this song! The string arrangement, in particular, is one of the most haunting and gorgeous melodies I've ever heard which perfectly mirrors the lonesomeness in the message of the song. Also some of Paul's best lyrics. Great video. Hope you're enjoying your week.

Eleanor Rigby is one of my favourite songs,it helps me feel like I belong somewhere when I'm drowning in my loneliness...Thank you so much for making this,I've been waiting for it for so long💙

This style is beautiful. Thank you for making this wonderful video.

That's a lovely appreciation, thank you. Sometime in the mid-70s, when I was 13 or 14, a friend put side one of _Revolver_ on, and a week or so later it became the first LP I ever bought with my own money. I had no idea what it meant at the time, but it was the Parlophone mono pressing, which the guy who ran our local record store preferred. So now I'm going to dig my turntable out of the closet and listen to side one on vinyl for the first time in 20 years!

The fact that the only music in the song is a stirring string ensemble is so evocative of the loneliness of the lyrics.

I'm sure that we all can relate to blowing our minds in the dark with a pipe full of clay!

I honestly don't believe much in lennon's side of certain stories..

One of Paul's best songs.

Eleanor Rigby is an amazing work of art in so many ways.

I love the sensitivity you bring to everyone of your "Love Letters". Truly have enjoyed discovering your channel and your work. Thank you and please keep creating.

Your video essays on the beatles continue to feed my fab four geekiness bro. Keep up the good work :) u deff deserve more subs

To me, the most powerful line is “wearing the face which she keeps in a jar by the door”…..her face is a reflection, which if glimpsed by others , is ethereal, non graspable, the jar is a metaphor for her existence , empty and fragile. Some of the best of Beatle lyrics. Too real.

This was a delight to watch, you should make more video essays of this nature!

I was a kid when I first heard this very haunting and melancholic song. The lyrics gave me chills but yet spoke to me about this character who's the very embodiment of loneliness. The more I hear this song and understand its lyrics, the greater admiration and respect that I have for the Beatles and their talents as songwriters.

I want paul to record scrambled eggs and release it as a single

You really deserve more subscribers with this lvl of Content

Say HollyHobs, sorry I don't know your name. Just wanted to say how grateful I am that you do all these wonderful videos about the Beatles and others. I really enjoy hearing the story behind the songs, especially the Beatles and... the Stones too. Thank you so very much.

In an October 2021 article in The New Yorker, McCartney wrote that his inspiration for "Eleanor Rigby" was an old lady who lived alone and whom he got to know very well. He would go shopping for her and sit in her kitchen listening to stories and her crystal radio set. McCartney said, "just hearing her stories enriched my soul and influenced the songs I would later write." McCartney wrote the melody and first verse alone, after which he presented the song to the Beatles when they were gathered in the music room of John Lennon's home at Kenwood. Lennon, George Harrison, Ringo Starr and Lennon's childhood friend Pete Shotton all listened to McCartney play his song through and contributed ideas. Harrison came up with the "Ah, look at all the lonely people" hook. Starr contributed the line "writing the words of a sermon that no one will hear" and suggested making "Father McCartney" darn his socks, which McCartney liked. It was then that Shotton suggested that McCartney change the name of the priest, in case listeners mistook the fictional character for McCartney's own father. So Paul took his advise and looked through a phone book until he found 'McKenzie'. McCartney could not decide how to end the song, and Shotton suggested that the two lonely people come together too late as Father McKenzie conducts Eleanor Rigby's funeral. At the time, Lennon rejected the idea out of hand, but McCartney said nothing and used the idea, later acknowledging Shotton's help. McCartney also asked the advice of Neil Aspinall and Mal Evans. John Lennon expressed his resentment at the way McCartney had sought other bandmates' and friends' creative input, rather than collaborate with him directly. Lennon added, "That's the kind of insensitivity he would have, which upset me in later years. "Ah, look at all the lonely people" refrain over the song's final chorus. was requested by George Martin, who said he came up with the idea of the line working contrapuntally to the chorus melody.

Your research is incredible , thx much

Haunting !! Beautiful !! Eloquent !! Paul !!!

You make amazing videos!

You should talk about sunny afternoon by the kinks

Sometimes it’s hard to go through those more contentious bits between John & Paul, especially when it’s the backdrop of some of their most iconic pieces. You just feel such pain and I don’t know how to reconcile it. I hear John’s hurt over Paul’s insensitivity and my heart breaks. But then I look at the dates and realize that less than a year later, John meets Yoko and will soon fracture the heart of his not even 5 year old little boy. The take away is that these men may be musical gods, but the rest of them is simply the same flawed humanity as the rest of us. Cheers, Holly Hobs. This was so good. And it’s always a pleasure to hear you sing & play.

Eleanor Rigby and While My Guitar Gently Weeps reminds me of Salt Lake City

I heard your albumn some songs are still stuck in my head..

Thx so much for this ;)

It's always fascinating to see such surprising maturity in the lyrics and powerful melody of this song coming from such young people.

It's interesting to me that Bernard Herrmann was an inspiration for the orchestration of this song. He was a great composer and I love his film musical compositions.

So brilliantly written yet such a short song. You find yourself wanting more but in some way you dont want more. You want just that snapshot of time. I love the song man its one of my all time favorites though how often do we really hear it? Im sure the rock pundits of the time were like. What the hell was that?

Probably my second favorite Beatles song after nowhere man

Another great fucking video man

It may be appropriate to think of Eleanor Rigby as a love song to the lonely, a gentle lamentation springing from the same well of kindness that gave rise to Paul McCartney's more traditional love songs.

Eleanor Rigby is a miracle. Its a song that had to be written yet you cant believe it was. Thank you Beatles.

I loved the cartoon strip style of this video.

I may just be a drunk Englishman But your scintillating analysis of my favourite songs is truly insightful Keep up the exceptional work!! Could i request that you produce a video on " how Eric Clapton made Cocaine" as I believe it is one of his best

Brother welcome back

I went to London Coloseum seeing a ballet performance , but next morning a woke up with a melodie in my head,I knew it was from the Beatles ,soon after I found out the song, since than its in my head,and I enjoy singing it ,its makes me so sheerfull .

Every life story is poetic, wanting, needing, yearning to be told, yet for many who never will

yes, one of the best part of the Beatles world is the stories they tell in their music! 👍👍

Ello from the Philippines!

Metaphysicians will have something to say about this story. Quite remarkable. That grave may not have been there before the song character appeared, our timeline shifted a bit there. Eleanor lived, and died in the timeline we're now on.

The problem is that the Beatles kept traveling through the dimensions. In one Paul wrote it. In another John wrote it. And in others they worked together. I believe in one it was written by Keith Richards, but he kept the original Ola Na Tungee,...but that's another story. In any case when you travel the dimensions that often everything gets all tangled up mentally. You can't remember your reality vs the reality of all the others. Hence the differences in John and Paul's accounts on so many songs.

One of the best Beatles Songs. Thank you for this Video. Lg from Germany, Ellen ✌ ❤before the Nsme should be Father Mc Cartney U know

Like a rolling stone!

im so glad my lecturer introduced me to this song

Theodor Adorno wrote the song and passed it down to George Martin. It was recorded by professional studio musicians and the Tavistok Institute dupes laid down the vocals last.

Obviously the lyrics are great but what really makes the song are the strings. Beautifully haunting.

Beautifully Sad 💔💯

well from the choice of words, it is believable that John has lots to contribute, the words of this song is far surperior than anything paul ever wrote, but what makes the stories well told is the music itself, which is penned by Paul (with backing music composed by sir martin, he should be received credit for this song too i think) no matter what, a true masterpiece!

I enjoyed that.

One of my favorite songs......very sad.

Ah, and also in that graveyard is Uncle George who was a father to John. Don't know if Mim later too. If Paul had seen the name as a catchy song he would have changed it. We could have had Beverly Rivers for example. Real school friend with one of those names. Also Vida Salty.!

Scrambled eggs ?? 😂😂 bruh what was paul on?? Lucy's sky diamonds??

Is it weird that MY name fits perfectly syllabically ...

Hunter Davies, chosen by Paul to write a biography of the Beatles, began by writing an article about the lyrics of Eleanor Rigby. He claimed that this text was written solely by Paul. Although it is not.

An incredible song - and So sad!

Could you do Fixing A Hole?

It's a heartbreaking tune - the commentary on Father McKenzie more aptly describes a man in despair, who has lost faith but in delusion still clings to convention...

Anyone knows the background music of this video?

wow, john's comments!

Wikipedia gets pretty detailed about who wrote what. "McCartney wrote the melody and first verse alone, after which he presented the song to the Beatles when they were gathered in the music room of John Lennon's home at Kenwood.[19] Lennon, George Harrison, Ringo Starr and Lennon's childhood friend Pete Shotton all listened to McCartney play his song through and contributed ideas.[20] Harrison came up with the "Ah, look at all the lonely people" hook. Starr contributed the line "writing the words of a sermon that no one will hear" and suggested making "Father McCartney" darn his socks, which McCartney liked.[20] It was then that Shotton suggested that McCartney change the name of the priest, in case listeners mistook the fictional character for McCartney's own father.[21] McCartney could not decide how to end the song, and Shotton suggested that the two lonely people come together too late as Father McKenzie conducts Eleanor Rigby's funeral. At the time, Lennon rejected the idea out of hand, but McCartney said nothing and used the idea, later acknowledging Shotton's help.[20] In Lennon's recollection, the final touches were applied to the lyrics in the recording studio,[22] at which point McCartney sought input from Neil Aspinall and Mal Evans, the Beatles' longstanding road managers.[23][24]"

George Harrison claimed he wrote some of the words in this song. But got zero credit

Have you heard Here today from tug of war its very sad song. it's about John, and paul's memory of him.

Beatles 4-ever !

My daughter I called Eleanor, but after Eleanor of Aquitaine and Eleanor Bron ( the satirical actress ). The song ‘ Eleanor Rigby ‘ speaks to the loneliness of life and the craving for love in the human heart of everyone.

I’m guessing you didn’t favor the “love letter” titles these videos were before?

Like many teens I spent all my free time playing these records. Only in the punk era it had to be a furtive indulgsnce. Shocked to discover with access to all the interviews and documentaries that the song writing was just a job. Scrambled eggs and random syllables rather than some emotional crisis.

It's hardly 2 minutes long. George Martin was smart enough to know that a song doesn't need to be embellished any longer than it is necessary to impart the story. George Martin and the engineer deserve plenty of the credit for the drama in this song. Paul wrote a wonderful lyric and melody but can you imagine it with a standard Beatle arrangement? The string quartet in this is perfect and each string part is perfectly written to marry with the lyrics and the vocals. The mic positions are exquisite - really ground-breaking for the time - to mic the strings so close that you can literally hear the bow hitting and scrapping across the strings ... That is truly a moment of brilliance in this song. Normally, in those days, the engineer would try to get the beauty of the tune without the harshness of the bow creating friction with the strings. But they went entirely the opposite way with this. And finally, the harmonies - actually what really makes the harmonies work, is the contrast with Paul's single vocal throughout the rest of the song. Everything about the arrangement of this is totally new for a rock album at the time.

Star Wars theme starts playing

I recall an interview with Paul regarding the lyrics and he initially thought of using "Father McCartney" but decided not to go there. So, he went through the phone directory in search of names that began with "Mc..." and when he came across "McKenzie", he ended up using it instead.

I swear the sound track is reminiscent of psycho in some places (especially the last verse)

We are all Eleanor Rigby.......

You didn't say anything about how the string parts were composed. The song is great, but the strings are even greater. Who wrote those parts?

and was bury along with her name. Died into oblivion. How many people in this world suffer the same end?

u deserve a sub!!!! (from me)

When I first heard the song, I thought it was about an affair between Eleanor and Father Mackenzie- with the priest killing Eleanor at the end due to the line “wiping the dirt off his hand” (probably not the exact line but close enough). With his motive of simply no longer caring about her, etc.

I think that even if we knew exactly how they wrote the lyrics and who said what and so on, it would be difficult to tell the exact percentage and the exact number of lines everyone wrote. Someone can have an idea, says something and another person transforms it into another idea and so on...

I want scrambled eggs

None of the Beatles play instrument on Eleanor rigby they only sing but the music is provided by a string quartet playing a score by George Martin

Such a dramatic song.

Believe that story if you so choose.

…also it was a string quartet, not an orchestra.

This song is very coincidental to actual things

Eleanor probably commited suicide in the song.

I don't know why everyone likes yesterday, according to me scrambled eggs is better.

commercials

I find lyrics like "Beep beep beep beep yeah" or "she loves you yeah yeah yeah" deeper than this.

britney spears

Lyrics by John Lennon, music by George Martin and Paul McCartney.

Very nice melody,touching lyrics and interesting story, but ain't no coincidence, everything is for a reason ,Paul's surely a good musician but ı still love to support unpopular and unknown musicians from a leftist perspective anyways

Why you are bringing this up? Just to put Paul down? John lied a lot depending of his mood, day or night , if Yoko was with him blah blah. The book written by one john best friends Peter Shotton, told that john didn’t contribute nothing to Eleanor Righb at all. Read the book before posting BS.

The song is about the emptiness of religion; how it has nothing to offer us. Father McKenzie and Eleanor Rigby are devoted to their faith, yet their lives are empty and pitiful. She has God. She believes her faith is a source of happiness, yet she has no friends or family, not even a husband to speak of. She is neither loved, nor even liked, by anyone. He has God, too. He devoted his life to learning and preaching the gospel, but no one is interested in what he has to say. He has no other skill, so he must stay with the church and keep up the facade and continue the charade. His sermons make difference to any person's life. They both pinned their hopes and dreams on their faith, but in the end, the only thing their faith was able to offer them was loneliness. Go to any church around the world, there are "Eleanor Rigbys" and "Father McKenzies" everywhere... and there always will be.

The Beatles is my favorite band but yesterday to me is better than ElendorRigby

Whatever its just a song.

How annoying

You’re signing is cringe sorry