5 August: Eleanor Rigby

On this date in  1966 The Beatles' single Eleanor Rigby was released. 10 facts about it:

1. It was a track on the Beatles album Revolver.

2. It was released as a double A side with Yellow Submarine.

3. The characters in the song were originally going to be called Miss Daisy Hawkins and Father McCartney.

4. Father McCartney was changed because Paul thought people might think the song was about his dad, who wasn’t lonely at all, so he turned to the telephone directory and picked out the name McKenzie.

5. According to Paul McCartney, the name Eleanor came from Eleanor Bron, the actress who starred in the Beatles film Help!, and Rigby from Rigby & Evens Ltd., a shop in Bristol.

6. Or did it? In the churchyard of St Peter's Parish Church in Woolton, Liverpool, there is a headstone engraved with the name "Eleanor Rigby". This Eleanor died in 1939 at the age of 44 and was a member of a well known local family. St Peter’s happens to be the church where John Lennon attended Sunday school as a child, and the one where he and Paul McCartney first met at a church fete in 1957. McCartney claims that although he often visited the graveyard, he never noticed this particular headstone. Or, presumably, another one close by which bore the name McKenzie.

7. There was also once a scullery maid at Liverpool City Hospital whose name was Eleanor Rigby. Her name is on a historical list of staff on the payroll. Paul McCartney was in possession of that document and donated it Sunbeams Music Trust.

8. Eleanor Rigby is played in the film Yellow Submarine as the submarine drifts over the desolate streets of Liverpool.

9. The song’s theme of loneliness has led to its lyrics being extensively studied by sociologists. One even wrote a book about it. Colin Campbell, professor of sociology at the University of York’s book was published in 2018 and is called The Continuing Story of Eleanor Rigby.

10. There is a statue of the character in Stanley Street, Liverpool, which was designed and made by the entertainer Tommy Steele as a tribute to the Beatles. He offered to make it for a fee of three pence, because that is half a sixpence, the name of one of Tommy Steele’s hits. Liverpool City Council agreed, and stumped up £4,000 towards it as they saw it as a tourist attraction. The sculpture was unveiled by Tommy Steele in 1982.

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