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BY LUIS BUENAFLOR JR.
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‘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 the face
That 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?”
– Written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney…
I WAS THINKING of writing about the latest State of the Nation Address or SONA of President Rodrigo Duterte but it seems everyone else is also writing or making comments about it so I believe moi will pass.
This I may say though, that straight out of the box and unorthodox, the SONA got all the undivided attention of the “yellow ribbon devotees” much as they hate to admit it. And it pissed them off and had them squirming in their yellow knickers which moi totally enjoyed.
So much for that and now to the topic at hand which was equally controversial during its time.
I need not introduce the “Beatles” as anyone who claims to be into music must, in one way or the other, have come across their music. You have to be a total idiot if you have never heard about the “Beatles” although I’m not holding my breath.
The “Beatles” started off as a “boy band.” In fact they were the very first “boy band” with hordes of screaming teenage girls fans.
Of course, nobody stays a “boy band” forever and they eventually discovered drugs, “LSD” and marijuana in particularly, and realized that they were after all a serious rock band. And so the experimentation and transition began. “Eleanor Rigby” marks that transformation.
From that free online encyclopedia:
“Eleanor Rigby” is a song by the Beatles, released on the 1966 album Revolver and as a 45 rpm single. It was written primarily by Paul McCartney, and credited to Lennon-McCartney.
The song continued the transformation of the Beatles from a mainly rock and roll- and pop-oriented act to a more experimental, studio-based band.
With a double string quartet arrangement by George Martin and striking lyrics about loneliness, “Eleanor Rigby” broke sharply with popular music conventions, both musically and lyrically. Richie Unterberger of AllMusic cites the band’s “singing about the neglected concerns and fates of the elderly” on the song as “just one example of why the Beatles’ appeal reached so far beyond the traditional rock audience.”
In an interview in 1966, McCartney recalled how he got the idea for his song:
“I was sitting at the piano when I thought of it. The first few bars just came to me, and I got this name in my head…’Daisy Hawkins picks up the rice in the church.’ I don’t know why. I couldn’t think of much more so I put it away for a day. Then the name Father McCartney came to me, 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.’”
From Songfacts.com:
“In the 1980s, a grave of an Eleanor Rigby was ‘discovered’ in the graveyard of St. Peter’s Parish Church in Woolton, Liverpool, and a few yards away from that, another tombstone with the last name ‘McKenzie’ scrawled across it. During their teenage years, McCartney and Lennon spent time sunbathing there, within earshot of where the two had met for the first time during a fete in 1957. Many years later, McCartney stated that the strange coincidence between reality and the lyrics could be a product of his subconscious (cryptomnesia), rather than being a meaningless fluke.
“The real Eleanor Rigby lived a lonely life similar to that of the woman in the song.
The song is often described as a lament for lonely people or a commentary on post-war life in Britain.”
Here are the rest of the lyrics perhaps you can appreciate Paul McCartney’s message:
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
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
The song is basically about two lonely people, a swipe at the established religion and dying alone “no one can hear and no one comes near.” (brotherlouie16@gmail.com/PN)
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