Week 6 Blog Post -- Eleanor Rigby (The Beatles)

 "Eleanor Rigby" by The Beatles was released in 1966. Despite the song's popularity, today was the first time I had ever heard the song and listened to it critically.

I really enjoyed how unique this song is in its instrumentation. I immediately noticed a lack of percussion instruments, which is odd for popular music (or at the very least the types of popular music I gravitate towards). I believe that "Eleanor Rigby" has a string quartet instrumentation, which works very nicely for this song -- every voice plays an important role in this track and is enjoyable to listen to both on its own and in the context of the song. The rhythm with which each chord is played vaguely reminds me of baroque string quartet music, which I found quite interesting. The harmonies used in the song seemed unique to me as well, leading me to believe that this song may utilize church modes rather than the diatonic scales most of us are used to, though I'm not as confident in that analysis.

Lyrically, I thought this song was fairly profound. The opening lyrics "Look at all the lonely people" signal right away that this song intimately deals with themes of loneliness and solitude. Following the opening are the lyrics "Eleanor Rigby / Picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been," which introduces us to the titular character and reinforces the theme of loneliness -- Eleanor Rigby has been left alone in a church building to sweep up rice that was thrown in celebration of a joyous event. The next lyrics are "Lives in a dream / Waits at the window wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door / Who is it for?," which makes me think of an old woman who sits by her porch in a rocking chair and happily greets passerby, friendly but not entirely lucid, a bittersweet image.

The next character we're introduced to is Father McKenzie, "Writing the words of a sermon that no one will hear / No one comes near" which may signify that attendance at his church is dwindling and he is beginning to feel lonely or even resentful because of it. The emotional climax of this song is found in the lyrics of the next verse: "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." I interpreted these lyrics to mean that Eleanor Rigby passed away and was buried by Father McKenzie, but nobody came to her funeral, an ultimate kind of loneliness.

This song was enjoyable to listen to and gave me an opportunity to ponder about life and the difficulties of the human condition. Overall, I found it to be a good listen, and I appreciated its melancholy quality and its dealing with heavy themes.