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Home , Eleanor Rigby, Sidney Sax

MUSC-21600: The Art of Rock Music Prof. Freeze

Eleanor Rigby (1966)

LISTEN FOR • String • Voice processing (automatic double tracking) • Dorian inflections • Asymmetrical phrase lengths • Unusual subject matter of lyrics

CREATION , Paul McCartney Label, Record 5493, also appears on Revolver (Parlophone 7009) Musicians Tony Gilbert, , John Sharpe, Jurgen Hess (); Stephen Shingles, John Underwood (); Derek Simpson, Norman Jones (), Paul McCartney, John Lennon, (voice) Producer Engineer Recording EMI Studios Two and Three (); April-June 1966; mono Charts Pop 11, Album 1

MUSIC Form Contrasting verse-chorus Key E minor Meter 4/4

MUSC-21600 Listening Guide Freeze “” (The Beatles, 1966)

LISTENING GUIDE Time Form Lyric Cue Listen For 0:00 Intro (8) “Ah, look at all” • Group vocals; strings play incisive rhythm, accenting every beat; cello fragments end on accented offbeats; violin fragments answer vocal phrases. 0:14 Verse 1 (5+5) “Eleanor Rigby” • Dry vocal; strings play steady quarter-notes. • Lyrics describe a scene; dorian inflection (C#) on “in” and “church.” 0:21 “Lives in a” • Lyrics comment (C§ on “dream”). 0:23 “Waits at the” • Lyrics describe; C# on “that” and “keeps”; switch to eighth-notes. 0:30 “Who is it for” • Lyrics question; C§ on “for.” 0:31 Chorus (8) “All the lonely” • ADT on voice; descending chromatic violin line. 0:45 Verse 2 (5+5) “Father Mackenzie” • Dry vocal; strings play quarter-notes. • Description (C# on “of” and “ser-”). 0:51 • New cello line. 0:52 “No one comes” • Comment (C§ on “near”). 0:54 “Look at him” • Description (C# on “in” and “night”). 0:55 • New violin line. 1:01 “What does he” • Question (C§ on “care”). 1:03 Chorus (8) “All the lonely” • ADT on voice; descending chromatic violin line. 1:17 Interlude (8) “Ah, look at all” • Repeat Intro. 1:31 Verse 3 (8) “Eleanor Rigby” • Dry vocal; strings play eighth-notes; new violin line. • C# on “and” and “bur-.“ 1:38 “Nobody came” • C§ on “came.” 1:40 “Father Mackenzie” • Strings switch to quarter-notes; new cello line doubles voice; C# on “from” and “hands.” 1:47 “No one was” • C§ on “saved.” 1:49 Chorus (9) “All the lonely” • in which intro melody (sung by McCartney with rotating speaker timbral effect) is superimposed on primary melody.

2 MUSC-21600 Listening Guide Freeze “Eleanor Rigby” (The Beatles, 1966)

LYRICS Ah, look at all the All the lonely people Ah, look at all the lonely people Where do they all come from? All the lonely people Eleanor Rigby picks up the rice in the church Where do they all belong? where a wedding has been Lives in a dream Ah, look at all the lonely people Waits at the window, wearing the face that Ah, look at all the lonely people she keeps in a jar by the door Who is it for? Eleanor Rigby died in the church and was buried along with her name All the lonely people Nobody came Where do they all come from? Father McKenzie wiping the dirt from his All the lonely people hands as he walks from the grave Where do they all belong? No one was saved

Father McKenzie writing the words of a All the lonely people (Ah, look at all the sermon that no one will hear lonely people) No one comes near Where do they all come from? Look at him working, darning his socks in All the lonely people (Ah, look at all the the night when there’s nobody there lonely people) What does he care? Where do they all belong?

SOURCES • Joseph Schloss, Larry Starr, and Christopher Waterman, Rock: Music, Culture, and Business (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 120–21. • Albin Zak III, Course Pak for A MUS-398 at the University of Albany. • http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/beatles/eleanorrigby.html.

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