This song is great in every possible way. Here and gone in 2 minutes and a few seconds. Loved your reaction. The background info was excellent. This song is one of The Beatles' songs that got EVERYBODY'S respect from around the world of music.
I think Roger Waters would respect and admire not only this song, but also Amy's brilliant analysis of and commentary on it. This universal need for connection and belonging inspires so much of Roger's lyrical composition and, here, Paul's unique and multifaceted songwriting skills. Amy's masterful, deep dive into Elanor's (and Father Mac's) story interestingly links these two artists.
your innocent, heartfelt analysis is truly touching. you remind me of my sister. she was a principal cellist in several orchestras (until she passed away a year ago), and the strings used to make her cry because of the simple energy, beauty, and harmonics. i'm getting tears hearing you explicate those beautiful details in her absence. thank you Amy.
@@odurandina I'm guessing it might be that content/copyright would take down any lengthy Beatles segment so they had to record this one this way. I agree with your sentiment but that's my theory.
I think using the chorus for the intro sets up the main theme of the song. Then, you get a specific example of that theme (Elenore Rigby herself) which can be fleshed out. Then the chorus can come back in to remind us of what the song is about.
"I have a hard time calling this piece rock music." Well there it is, you have unlocked the rest of what you will hear from the Beatles. First they mastered rock & roll music. Then through their inventive music and creative lyrics they broadened the definition wider and wider. "I didn't know you could do that in a rock song." You couldn't - not until the Beatles knocked down the walls. The Queen songs you have come to love would not have happened if the Beatles hadn't joyfully broken the rules of what a pop song could be. Through their example, breaking the rules became one of the defining characteristics of the genre.
Exactly. I have watched many of Amý´s videos. She really knows her stuff and she provides lots of interesting insights. But very ofted she lacks historical perspective. You need to know what pop music was like and how it was produced when the Beatles started. You just cannot apply the same standards to an early Beatles song and to Queen songs written ten years later. Without the Beatles´ revolution that music may have never been written.
We've all heard the phrase: "The Rolling Stones are the greatest Rock-n-Roll band ever." And I agree. The Beatles transcend that. McCartney once called the Stones the greatest cover band in history. He said: "We always wanted to cast a wider net." Understatement.
In 1972 I was in the 8th grade - and my young English teacher was teaching us poetry - using Eleanor Rigby as an example. When she got to the part where Eleanor *_puts on a face that she keeps in a jar by the door_* - our teacher started crying - I mean really crying. The room was deathly silent as she composed herself - and as I sat there - Eleanor Rigby became one of the favorite songs of my life - because I got it - lyrics mean things.
This song feels intensely sad and beautiful at the same time. I was in tears the first time I heard it. Both the lyrics about loneliness and poverty and the music hit hard. It was part of the Yellow Submarine movie and the blast from the horns neatly coincides with an animation of the chimneys suddenly violently belching smoke. It helped me put things in perspective when I felt quite down during my late teens. Thank you for mentioning "She's Leaving Home". A sad song as well, but great to sing for yourself and the moment that the harmony comes when two melodies are sung below each other, the long maintained chords singing She's Leaving Home in long notes while the faster main melody and lyrics are spun below that. So beautiful :-).
This was greatest deep dive into Eleanor Rigby imaginable. It’s noteworthy that in the second to last chorus they sing “Lovely People” with the more emphatic vocals. It’s to say that those lonely people are also lovable. Brilliant song. Brilliant analysis Amy. Thanks Virgin Rock
You explained it so well. Some people are skeptical when someone analyzes a piece of art, and say the reviewer reads too much into it. But many times the artist creates by instinct, and the meaning is there even if he/she didn't think of that consciously.
And then the artist reads the analysis and realizes where in themselves the art came from, even if unknown at the start. This isn't always true, but sometimes, the art is deeper than the artist knew.
One of your best reactions - well done. I think you captures all the elements of this masterpiece, including an important one as I see it: The point of having father McKenzie in the song is to have two lonely people coming to the same place in years without ever connecting. The story is that so many people pass through life without noticing each other. It's a very sad an melancholic song of missed opportunities of what life could be. And I am glad you also caught the meaning of '..was buried along with her name'. The lyrics are brilliant - so much said in so few lines, and the music match the lyrics perfectly, like you point out very clearly.
Hello, Virginia. I'm Brazilian, I'm 67 years old, and I've been listening to the Beatles since I was a child, because my older sister was a Beatlemaniac. Only when I was an adult and more mature did I realize how brilliant they were. I understood that Eleanor Rigby's lyrics portrayed the human loneliness created by the cosmopolitan society that emerged 6,000 years ago, when it became "sedentary" and isolationist, unlike prehistoric times, when we were "nomads - hunter-gatherers", we lived in groups and everything was for everyone. In some tribes there was not even the pronoun "I", but only "we". As I said, I'm referring to the lyrics, because I've never heard anyone explain the melody like you. I thought your explanations were brilliant. Congratulations. Olá, Virgínia. Sou brasileiro, tenho 67 anos e ouço Beatles desde criança, pois minha irmã mais velha era beatlemaníaca. Somente quando adulto e mais maduro percebi quão geniais eles foram. Entendi que a letra de Eleanor Rigby retratava a solidão humana criada pela sociedade cosmopolita surgida há 6000 anos, quando se tornou "sedentária" e isolacionista, ao contrário da pré-história, quando éramos "nômades - caçadores coletores", vivíamos em grupo e tudo era para todos. Em algumas tribos sequer havia o pronome "eu", mas apenas "nós". Como disse, refiro-me à letra, pois jamais ouvi quem explicasse a melodia como você. Achei brilhante suas explicações. Parabéns.
A very insightful analysis. It's amazing to see someone, on their first listen, notice aspects of this music that I've missed, even after listening to this song for most of my life. I think we often pick up on certain internal patterns in great music unconsciously when listening. It's similar to how Paul McCartney, who wrote this song without any formal knowledge of musical structure or harmony. Apparently guided by his intuition. Or whatever it is that gives someone this kind of talent,
This is absolutely stunning. A highly detailed, unbiased dissection and appreciation of a 60 year old piece of the soundtrack of my youth - an hour devoted to a 2 minute piece of music. A half hour passes before we get past the introduction, and I am rivited. While listening to Amy, I am convinced this is a significant event, and I'm amazed it's not been done before. Thank you.
Frank Zappa, known for his eclectic and often satirical musical style, once expressed his thoughts on The Beatles' song "Eleanor Rigby." He admired the song's composition and the way it blended classical elements with rock music. Zappa acknowledged that The Beatles' ability to integrate orchestral instruments, like the string quartet in "Eleanor Rigby," demonstrated their innovative approach to music. He also appreciated the song's dark and introspective lyrics, which were a departure from the typical pop themes of the time.
Gawd...and while he stands unique in that era, he had a BUNCH of 23-year-olds in his 'industry' in those years. I hope we still have those. I always wondered how Paul wrote this song - I assume "on the piano" - but he had access to cellos and violins IF he wanted. And for more experienced fingers, he had George Martin who I credit with final orchestration.
When Paul started recording Sgt Pepper, the Beatles 8th album, he was still only 24 years old. He began recording Rubber Soul, Revolver and Sgt Pepper between the ages of 23 and 24. It's outrageous.
Thank you for this, Amy. I love the way that you broke the song down and, with your classically trained ear, offered a different perspective on a classic song.
@@thomaskoukouris4070 His songs are geared towards pop. John's are geared toward experimental. Harrison I don't know as much. I think he's kind of between the two? Ringo's work is mostly voice acting (Thomas the tank engine).
When i hear the song, i think of the phrase "People living lives of quiet desperation", it's a song for everyone who never made it, never realized any dreams, never found their soul mate, never got any lucky breaks, they aren't really living, just existing. Paul saw the Darkside of that and commented on it.
Personally, I saw this song as the opposite. Both had lived full lives, and now all that they loved were gone so they only had themselves and were existing on memories.
@@ElementaryPenguin It can definitely happen that way too. People can have a great life, then become isolated for many reasons, including through illness, disability, poverty, loss of partner, children moving far away and not coming to visit, and death or moving away of friends - or a combination of any such factors. I know, because it happened to me! And I always used to puzzle over the song too, when I was young. I never in a million years thought I might end up as one of those 'lonely people'. Fortunately, I have found ways to make my life meaningful and full despite my circumstances, just as Eleanor Rigby was no doubt trying to do by being involved in some way with her local church, and keeping a sociable face in that jar by the door just in case a visitor should arrive...
@@duanevp"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation." Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience and Other Essays
No guitars, no drums, no rock keyboards. What other rock and roll band could pull this off? None! This is an example of the Beatles playing chess while all other bands were playing checkers.
I was convinced I wouldn't listen to nearly an hour of review on a 3 min song. Yet I did listen to it all. Shows how little I knew ! Hello EVERYONE, with Amy's first listen We Are All Together.😊
The quiet desperation reminds me of a William Blake poem. "I wander through each charter'd Street, near where the charter'd Thames does flow, and mark in every face I meet, marks of weakness, marks of woe.."
OK, 8 minutes in and I have to interject something important concerning the quote from engineer Geoff Emerick. Emerick is mistaken here and contradicts every other authoritative first hand source when he describes George Martin suggesting strings and having to persuade a reluctant McCartney. *Emerick here conflates the story of Yesterday with the storty of Eleanor Rigby." That;'s exactly what happened with Yesterday in 1965, right down to the detail of Paul fearing it could be "too lush, too Mancini [sic. Mantovani]". The story with Eleanor Rigby as told by John Lennon, by George Martin, and by Paul himelf, is quite different: According to John Lennon, Paul conceived the idea in the first place. ‘The violin backing was Paul’s idea,’ John said. ‘Jane Asher had turned him on to Vivaldi.’ Paul specified aspects of the score George Martin produced for the string arrangement which was based on Paul’s Vivaldi-inspired staccato piano: ‘I thought of the backing, but it was George Martin who finished it off,’ he said, adding ‘I just go bash, bash on the piano. He knows what I mean.’ He visited George Martin’s flat to rough out the score. ‘Paul told me he wanted the strings to be doing a rhythm,' said Martin. 'He played the piano and I played the piano, and I took a note of his music.’ Martin wrote out the string parts guided (he said) by the sound of a Bernard Herrmann film score. Paul also supervised the string recording session from the control room. His final instruction relayed via George Martin was to insist on ‘no vibrato,’ as he had done two years before for Yesterday. In his recent 'The Lyrics' Paul describes it like this: 'George Martin had introduced me to the string-quartet idea through “Yesterday.” I’d resisted the idea at first, but when it worked I fell in love with it. So I ended up writing “Eleanor Rigby” with a string component in mind. When I took the song to George, I said that, for accompaniment, I wanted a series of E-minor chord stabs. In fact, the whole song is really only two chords: C major and E minor. In George’s version of things, he conflates my idea of the stabs and his own inspiration by Bernard Herrmann, who had written the music for the movie “Psycho.” George wanted to bring some of that drama into the arrangement. And, of course, there’s some kind of madcap connection between Eleanor Rigby, an elderly woman left high and dry, and the mummified mother in “Psycho.”' [I should add that I'm very far from the first to notice memory errors in Emerick's essential but occasionally unreliable book, Here, There & Everywhere.]
Wow! I've always thought the staccato violins reminded me specifically of the shower scene from "Psycho" but figured I was reading- or should say listening- too much into it. Bernard Hermann is the obvious connection. Thanks!
I always found Father McKenzie was writing a sermon for Eleanor's funeral. Since she was alone, no one would attend the funeral, hence no one would hear the sermon.
@@art.is.life.eternal Maybe. And maybe he is also an adulterer. The option he is also lonely is never substantiated anywhere in the text with not a single reference in the lyrics he is, so what makes more sense... Father McKenzie is also lonely which is a supposition taken out of thin air with no lyrical backing, or is Father McKenzie just a regular priest who writes a sermon to a last farewell of Eleanor Rigby where nobody will come to listen to it because she was such a lonely person when she was alive, which is literally the lyrics?
I love your breakdown! That "sigh" sound of the hopes and dreams fizzling out and dissipating could also symbolize the rice falling at the wedding and the soil falling at the grave- those few moments that jump out at us amidst the monotony of our lives and seem to give us a moment of excitement or hope before drifting away.....
Eleanor Rigby redefined what so many people did with strings in rock/pop music for ages...even to this day! 50 years later when Radiohead did "Burn The Witch" they sought something to break out of the Eleanor Rigby mold and I think they managed it. Some other key string/orchestral parts in popular music that spring to mind include Moody Blues "The Night" (1967), Serge Gainsbourg's 1971 album, and Elton John's Madman Across The Water, also from 1971. Appreciate your detailed thematic analysis on this one, you had different assumptions than I did on some things that will change how I listen to this in the future!
The Beatles are quite worthy of this professional-level critical analysis, and you are more than worthy of being the one to do it. This is a remarkable treasure-trove of insight and knowledge. Thank you, from a lifetime Beatles fan who is learning something new from every word you speak! I am only 20min into this, but I had to pause to comment before my thoughts moved any further along. Back to it...
Hi Amy, I'm Marco and I'm writing to you from Italy. I've been following your channel since you opened it and I find it absolutely interesting. First of all, excuse me for the mistakes but my English is not the best. I've been a Beatles fan since I was 14, now I'm 58 and you can imagine how much I've listened to them, I couldn't wait for you to get to Revolver because as far as I'm concerned, it's from this album that the lyrics and music become more interesting. I saw the video on Taxman and I just finished Eleonor Rigby; your analyses and explanations on the musical passages are interesting and enlightening even if I'm just a terrible guitarist. I don't know if you've read Geoff Emerick's autobiography, but in that book there are explained so many technical things that he, Martin and the Beatles themselves used from Revolver to Abbey Road: for example, it was Paul who asked Geoff that the violins had to sound very "sharp" and Geoff brought the microphones very close to the instruments during the recording phase. If you want to listen to the Only Strings version, you can find it on CD 1 of Anthology 2. P.S. I'm impatient and curious about what you'll say when you get to track 14... Bye bye from Italy
Again it was very pleasant to watch this reaction 👌😃 The intensity in this song ... you named it strikingly well. I really got goosebumps sometimes when you pointed this out ... A vivid colourful street scene ... people walking in both directions ... isolated, no connection to each others ... great description 😊👍 No place for melisma in the music, so appropriate! The eloquence of the Beatles ❤️😊👌
I just stumbled across your masterful deconstruction of this classic of the Beatles repertoire. As a Boomer, I remember where I was when the originality of the song struck me--standing on a dock looking out over a lake. It was not long before I hit the subscribe button, as I would like to listen to at least one of your videos a day, time permitting. The year prior to the release of Revolver 1965, the Fab 4 released an album, Rubber Soul, that brought a new level of sophistication to their music, and Revolver is in a way the culmination of that transformation. I see you have done some takes on songs from that album. The shift was prompted by the group's experience in the US tour and their decision to cease touring. Hence it was produced with far more studio time devoted to any previous album. It look forward to viewing your dissection.
The true genius starts with Revolver. The albums from here on in are all unique (even Let it Be). The despair and desolation at the end of this song is complete. Then the next song is so different in music and tone…and the next one, and the next one. Please, don’t miss any songs from Revolver, there is so much texture and variety.
I disagree. That genius was there from the beginning. I'm sure you're aware that every song from A Hard Day's Night was a Lennon/McCartney original. When The Beatles recorded it, John Lennon was 23 and Paul McCartney 21. The collective genius may have developed, but just consider the breadth of the songs they wrote before Revolver. What was so stunning about the early Beatles was how catchy almost all of their songs were. Just this morning, Facebook, which knows me too well, offered me a short of When I Get Home. I adore that song, and Lennon's multi tracking of the vocal is exhilarating. The guitar work and the drumming and the singing are like an absolutely wonderful assault.
@@bobtaylor170The Beatles are strange in that way. You sort of go from the highest peaks most people could imagine at the time to even higher peaks than anyone could imagine. And then you go higher. And yet it often astonishes me that after they broke up, the members all produced amazing music (even Ringo at times) but nothing that ever again had the cultural and artistic impact of what they produced together.
@@bobtaylor170I love the early stuff too but from Revolver they became a studio band and took music to a new place, using that musicality to great effect. They could always write great tunes. Many bands have been experimental but none have married that to the Beatles level of songwriting.
You've outdone yourself with this analysis. In '66, hearing this for the first time, I cried. Years later, John Prine's song ' Hello in There' evoked the same response. Cheers, --bd
A most pleasing analysis, Amy! Eleanore Rigby is one of my fave Beatles songs and I must have listened to it over a thousand times (no exaggeration!) I gained a lot from your take, musically, of course, but also from your rather articulate "sense" of the song itself. I am enriched. My genuine thanks! 🙂
Re: weddings. It used to be common in the UK for women to congregate at churches for weddings, to see the spectacle, comment on the wedding dress, flowers, etc. I guess it was kind of a free show for them, where they could imagine themselves in a similar situation. Perhaps the kind of thing that a friendless spinster might yearn for.
First time viewer. A reactor who actually knows music, music theory and it's development over centuries and deep dives into contemporary masterpieces such as this. Scribed.
It's expressive, it's profound, and it's also simple in its writing. And the string arrangement suit perfectly well to this lyrics. Great song by the Beatles. Thank you for this analysis. Regards from Argentina.
I LOVE this channel. I have been a Beatles Fan my whole life. It’s so nice to have a fresh set of ears listening and analyzing their music. I love that you are following the songs and in order so we can better understand their growth. I also like that you are not reading anything BEFORE the song. Also, Howard Goodall is a composer and music historian. He had a good documentary on how the Beatles changed Pop,Rock, AND Classical music. People who like this channel will really like that documentary. Amy, you should watch it, but AFTER the 150 series is completed.
You're right, but there are exceptions: Day tripper for instance ... and there you have A hard day's night : as far as I know, John wrote the whole song, and Paul sings the bridge (if you like).
Brilliant analysis, Amy. You made me see things even I didn't think of after 58 years of listening to this! Or may be I did, but never quite recognised it. Can't wait for Here, There and Everywhere!
And the First World War. A woman's expectations were marriage and children. So many men lost in the wars left women out of society even as they grieved.
Perhaps even more significantly, Eleanor Rigby would have been one of that generation of young women who had their future torn away from them, when their young husbands, lovers, and fiancés where killed in the trenches of WW I. I recall, as a child in the 1960s, the legions of older maiden aunts, who were of that generation. Eleanor Rigby was one of them, perhaps haunted by that wedding that might, in another world, have been hers along with a family.
I was around seven when this came out and my family had the album; this song always scared the crap out of me and, being around seven years old, I had no idea why. Your musical breakdowns are very nice to hear. Be well.
I recall watching a TV show at the time where someone did a dramatic recitation of the lyrics to Eleanor Rigby. Reading your comment now, I believe it was Ginsberg.
I was glad to hear that, I remember when Ginsberg praised the lyrics of Dylan's A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall. I always wondered what he would think of some Beatles songs, since Ginsberg was interested in rock poetry.
I interpreted the face in a jar by the door the same way you did…the face you put on to show the world as you leave your front door. Paul may have been thinking of cold cream, but the line says so much more than that.
The strings are very reminiscent of the striking ones in Psycho the Hitchcock movie from 1960. Very abrupt and striking .. which fits in with the subject matter perfectly.. distressing and stark at the same time .. genius … no one had heard this type of “pop” music in 1966 and follows on from the bitterness from Taxman perfectly
Well, that's what Paul and George Martin have said - it was Paul's sonic idea, transmitted to GM, who translated it, inspired by the famous Psycho 'stabbing' shower scene music by Bernard Herrmann, into a strings arrangement, which was then edited by Paul to get the exact sound he heard in his head.. Although I'm not entirely sure whether it was Paul or George who first got the Psycho idea...
This was a big one and I loved your reaction. Amazing what Paul and George Martin were able to do with such a simple structure. I think George Martin has earned his title as the 5th Beatle with you Amy.😉 I enjoyed your comments on the lyrics. Yeah, I don't think Father McKenzie is delivering his sermon to an empty church. It is just that they don't really hear what he is saying, and neither side connects with the other. This does bring it closer to the poetic vibe in "Sound of Silence" with people speaking without listening. Great reaction! I'm glad you enjoyed it so much and found so many things to say about it. Very nice closing words.
What I love about this song and the with the time you spent on the intro is like the saying, " you had me at hello". The intro grabs the attention and you have to learn more. Thank you. Great review.
Revolver is a very existential album. It's about consciousness, life, death, spirituality, etc. It's extremely bold, especially at the time. Even Taxman mentions death. One extra point about Eleanor Rigby is that the high staccato strings are reminiscent of the film Psycho. Anyway, I'm keen to see what she thinks of "Got To Get You Into My Life" and "Tomorrow Never Knows", although I can't imagine her saying much about the last song's music as it stays on one chord and has lots of special effects.
Your observations are genius. I loved what you said about how Eleanor's life would have changed had she had a young Paul McCartney show up at her door and help her...
As soon as i saw you were doing this i was like I can't wait for your reaction to this. And i was correct. It took me a while to truly appreciate this song . But i knew there was something special about it.
Love to see you just do a straight reaction and smiles. At first I thought you were milking it ( 25 minutes )....but then I smiled, realized your love of strings and orchestration. Made me continue.... From west coast Canada 🇨🇦, peace. ( ps. Love to hear more, by ear harp playing to the songs reacted! ).
I really enjoyed your analysis of this piece. You have great insight and really bought this piece to life for me. The Beatles are simply the best and hopefully after your journey through their music you will agree with Vlad and me!
Wow! That was a fantastic synopsis on the song. What hit me most among others was the lyric that I thought said "Aw look at all the lonely people" to "I look at all the lonely people". That is a big difference. -
It did! For the first time ever, serious music critics began to sit up and took notice. Until then, pop music was regarded with disdain, as cheap flash-in-the-pan trash for the youngsters who didn't know any better, to be discarded and forgotten tomorrow. No-one ever imagined a classical musician would be sitting down in 50 or 60 years time giving a 'pop' song serious analysis, or that people of all ages would still be listening and falling in love with it.
I watch her reactions (good on a musical level} but she doesn't have the context of the importance of one Beatles song vs another. Which ones were instant classics, and hits for all time (like Eleanor) or which ones were just good album tracks..
@@phila3884 I haven't bothered to watch many of these reactions recently because with such a wealth of brilliant Beatles songs to pick from, the choices for these YT videos (as opposed to those on her paid platforms) have been so humdrum - almost as if Vlad was picking the dullest or least consequential songs he could think of for her to analyse. Of course, it could just be me - perhaps others' taste is different. I found the same with the Queen selections.
And that's why the Beatles are Great. 🙂 There's a lot more I could say about the Beatles but I'll let others say it. Thanks for the reaction - enjoyed it, but then I'm high. Especially enjoyed the first few measures...first listen? Not what you expected? ;-)
Not a criticism, but you never got back to the 'modal' character of the vocal melody. It goes through C# rather than the more usually expected C natural as the 6th note in the key of E minor. This means it's in the Dorian mode. Perhaps that's what Paul felt gave it a slightly exotic, maybe Eastern feel. But this mode (scale) can be heard in traditional British and Irish music, and also in some Gregorian chant, which makes an interesting connection with the characters in the song.
I have always considered this song a direct response to The Rolling Stones "Paint it Black" which came out a few months earlier. Rock music started to turn away from the sunshine and rainbows and delving into real topics of real life that there is sadness, loneliness, depression and heartbreak out there.
in my own timeline of Beatle history, "Eleanor Rigby" and "Yellow Submarine," which appear on Revolver, mark the beginning of the psychedelicized Victoriana-Edwardiana of the group's middle period. Not only were the songs released, at the time of the album's release, as a double-A single; they were followed by the double-A "Penny Lane" and "Strawberry Fields," which furthered their themes and were recorded when the Sgt. Pepper project was getting under way. "Sgt. Pepper" was the period's high point (obviously) and was followed by the single of "Hello Goodbye" and the Lewis-Carroll-ish "I am the Walrus." Those two songs were included on "Magical Mystery Tour," which was released right after them and with which this period fades away. The song "Magical Mystery Tour" itself, with its psychedelicized bus trip of the kind with which, I'll guess, the Beatles were familiar in their Liverpool childhoods, is more or less the period's ending, the group's last treatment of the English life that, in a way, this music swept into history. Compare, with the "Sgt Pepper" cover, the unpsychedelic Northern England brass band at the following: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_brass_band#History From Liverpool and Manchester, in the early 1800s, came the first phase of the modern industrial world. From Liverpool again, via the Beatles, came the goodbye to it. Hello, Goodbye.
In at least one interview Paul went on the explain the ''face' in the 'jar by the door' as being cold cream. He adds "My mum’s favourite cold cream was Nivea, and I love it to this day. That’s the cold cream I was thinking of in the description... I was always a little scared by how often women used cold cream". Thanks for your detailed analysis. Earlier this morning I was checking my references for a book I have been writing relating to an aspect of Bristol's history. The reference was to the warehouse of Rigby & Evens which was certainly in the same street as the Old Vic. This afternoon your talk popped up (I'd forgotten this track was going to be next) How about that for a coincidence?!
This song is another example of the massive contribution George Martin made to the Beatles’ success. His ability to actually orchestrate things like string quartets, trumpet solos and full orchestra crescendos took the band to the absolute next level.
Scored by George Martin using a string octet, ( 4 violins, 2 violas, 2 cellos, ) he referenced Bernard Herrmann's Psycho music for the staccato quality. Paul wrote the song with lyrical input from John, George and Ringo. He is the main vocal with harmonies by John and George. An astonishing entry on the Revolver album. Influenced many other groups to utilize orchestral instruments, ( Rolling Stones' Ruby Tuesday for instance. ) Brilliant!😊😊😊
I think it was this song that got english language teachers in England setting Beatles songs for their classes to analyse. Your reaction and analysis deserves an A++ Keep Reacting!
I was 22 when Revolver was released. I had always loved music of all kinds but this album opened up new and wonderful directions. I consider myself priveliged to have grown up in this time and I greatly appreciate your lengthy (for that is what it deserves) analysis of these songs. We had heard some of the songs prior tp release but to go out on the day to my local record store and bring this treasure home will always stay in my memory. Placing the new disc on the turntable. lowering the stylus and entering a new world of music. You have mentioned many things bout this album so far which is great but may I just mention also the fabulous sleeve design by the Beatles good friend Klaus Voorman (from their Hamburg days) which was/is a work of art in tis own right. Thanh you for this review and I look forward to the next song "Im Only Sleeping". If Rigby was pure McCartney Sleeping is pure Lennon, Thanks again.
I've been waiting for you to hear this one. To me this is an absolute masterpiece, both as a very expressive song about a very particular state of so many human beings (I grew up among such elderly, lonely people) and technically, every bit of the accompaniment (If we can call it simply an accompaniment) is what is should be. And there's a lot of finesse, small, yummy contrapuntal moments that I enjoy so much! It does make me sad indeed. But then so does Mahler - although in a very different sense. But that's one of the jobs of all art isn't it? Often it can and should turn our world upside down, make us sad or mad or question our own thoughts and beliefs. Rock music does that more often than not, that's part of why I love it. Maybe the Czech writer Bohumil Hrabal was right when he said: “No book worth its salt is meant to put you to sleep, it's meant to make you jump out of your bed in your underwear and run and beat the author's brains out.”
lol! 😀 I had a Czech visual artist friend who would probably have felt something of that sort about art in general. Those crazy Bohemians... I'll admit I do have some books though, that I treasure specifically because of their soothing, drifting quality, to read after the laptop goes off before going to sleep. Puts the brainwaves and nervous system into a more spacious, less focused pattern. It doesn't have to be dumb, just another form of the writers' craft.
Amazing that such a deeply compassionate, melancholy, yet wise song could be written by a guy in his twenties! Thankful to God that my Church is full of faithful and compassionate ,very kind and caring friends and prayer-warriors!
I have listened to this song what I now hear forthe filt time is "aaaaaaae" Which is a drawn out open 'I", with a snag at the end that makes it 1st person singular. Now, it is an embed. Thank you.
Allen Ginsberg interpreted the line "All of the lonely people where do they all come from?" as referring to the fans of the Beatles who become hysterical, line the streets, hotel lobbies, etc following the Beatles when they are on tour. George Harrison has been credited for adding the line "Wearing the face she keeps in a jar next to the door." The public persona she projects concealing her true state.
Thanks again, Amy - love the harp demos. However, you missed mentioning that very neat trick at the end.. doubling the vocal refrains for ‘Ah, look at..’ and ‘All the lonely people..’ - perfect little coda. Look forward to your analysis of She Said, She Said.. a typically Lennon exercise in tempo changes (see also ‘Good Morning, Good Morning’ on the Pepper album).
As always another interesting reaction. I have a few comments on the lyrics. I had read that Paul had the first two verses and wasn't sure where to go with the last verse. To sum up the storyline, supposedly he got help from his bandmates. And even though he knew it had to do with loneliness, it was George Harrison who came up with the line "look at all the lonely people". Also, Paul's original line was Father McCartney and later changed to McKenzie.
Top 10 song for me for sure. I always saw Eleanor Rigby as the church secretary listening to this song. Dorian mode is what I think it is. The C# in the verse melody with a song that basically has 2 chords, Em and C. How do they get away with that, and make it sound that good? A perfect string arrangement by George Martin, the movement of the violins later in the song, and using the cellos to play the melody and shadow Paul's voice in the third verse. Plus, George picks the right ensemble for the job. I've heard full orchestras play this, but the only way it sounds right to me is to do it with a string octet, and I think Paul's honest, sort of naive voice really helps here. What would be cool with a full orchestra would be if they could use this as an introduction or allegro giving the third person perspective, and have the next section be more serene music (use the flutes, woodwinds, etc.) that speaks to the woman's and the priest's first person POV of their lot in life, and then a conclusion that revisits the theme from this song and puts it all together. What really made me happy is that I was thinking of Vivaldi's "Winter" at work today, and the immediacy of the strings in that piece, and how well that portrays the desolation of winter. Thinking of this song did remind me of that, if only because it is portraying loneliness with music. String-wise, I'd always heard he wanted something that sounded like Bernard Herrmann's score for "Psycho". I prefer the comparison to Vivaldi, and apparently, I also need to start listening to more of Schubert's work. I think you are really going to like the rest of this album.
I think the lyric: "wearing a face that she keeps in a jar by the door", perfectly explains a person like the Milkman, Postman, Rent Collector. . . Etc calling to be paid, so before she opens the door, she dons a happy face as she speaks to the caller and pays the bill but after closing the door her happy face turns sorrowful again.
I think Elanor Rigby lived in a flat near that church - I think she saw the activity - the people there for the wedding coming and going...I think from a window she saw the Bride and Groom coming out and she say the rice being thrown...I think she sighed and imagined herself as the bride alas never to be. I think she waited for all the people to be gone and Elanor Rigby walked over to the church and she bent down and scooped up a handful of rice - the impulse to touch the rice - the tactile experience of holding the rice gave her a moment of vicarious pleasure - for a brief moment eyes closed and rice in her hand Elanor was that Bride - for a brief moment Elanors' lonliness was forgotten. Do not forget that Elanor Rigby is one song amongst the other songs on the album Sgt Peppers LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND...an album that tells a story that recognizes that there are indeed a lot of lonely people out there in society. Isolated lonely people and Sgt Pepper and his band of performers are there to give them some joy if only temporarily. Those who belong to this proverbial "lonely hearts club" are given a reason to smile and to feel a part of something and not so alone - for a while.
In one of the interviews with Paul, he said that he and George Martin had discussed composer Bernard Herman with regard to the sound of the violins that they were trying to achieve. PS I wis you could see A Hard Days Night, so you could see the guys and exoerience their personalities
![BLACK BAG - Official Trailer [HD] - Only in Theaters March 14](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Du0Xp8WX_7I/mqdefault.jpg)
This song is great in every possible way. Here and gone in 2 minutes and a few seconds. Loved your reaction. The background info was excellent. This song is one of The Beatles' songs that got EVERYBODY'S respect from around the world of music.
I put it in the top songs of the 20th century at least. Possibly Paul’s best work, though I don’t like to try numeric ranks for creative works.
I think Roger Waters would respect and admire not only this song, but also Amy's brilliant analysis of and commentary on it. This universal need for connection and belonging inspires so much of Roger's lyrical composition and, here, Paul's unique and multifaceted songwriting skills. Amy's masterful, deep dive into Elanor's (and Father Mac's) story interestingly links these two artists.
your innocent, heartfelt analysis is truly touching. you remind me of my sister. she was a principal cellist in several orchestras (until she passed away a year ago), and the strings used to make her cry because of the simple energy, beauty, and harmonics. i'm getting tears hearing you explicate those beautiful details in her absence. thank you Amy.
Paul and John commented that George Martin earlier had taught them that you could use the chorus for the intro and it was a lesson they never forgot
I think they did it first on She Loves You... definitely had great impact. Explosive!
her video is too chopped up ---- technical and correct and totally unenjoyable.
@@odurandina I'm guessing it might be that content/copyright would take down any lengthy Beatles segment so they had to record this one this way. I agree with your sentiment but that's my theory.
I think using the chorus for the intro sets up the main theme of the song. Then, you get a specific example of that theme (Elenore Rigby herself) which can be fleshed out. Then the chorus can come back in to remind us of what the song is about.
"I have a hard time calling this piece rock music." Well there it is, you have unlocked the rest of what you will hear from the Beatles. First they mastered rock & roll music. Then through their inventive music and creative lyrics they broadened the definition wider and wider. "I didn't know you could do that in a rock song." You couldn't - not until the Beatles knocked down the walls. The Queen songs you have come to love would not have happened if the Beatles hadn't joyfully broken the rules of what a pop song could be. Through their example, breaking the rules became one of the defining characteristics of the genre.
Good write-up.
Well said!
Exactly. I have watched many of Amý´s videos. She really knows her stuff and she provides lots of interesting insights. But very ofted she lacks historical perspective. You need to know what pop music was like and how it was produced when the Beatles started. You just cannot apply the same standards to an early Beatles song and to Queen songs written ten years later. Without the Beatles´ revolution that music may have never been written.
Beatlesque became the word for it.
We've all heard the phrase: "The Rolling Stones are the greatest Rock-n-Roll band ever." And I agree. The Beatles transcend that. McCartney once called the Stones the greatest cover band in history. He said: "We always wanted to cast a wider net." Understatement.
In 1972 I was in the 8th grade - and my young English teacher was teaching us poetry - using Eleanor Rigby as an example. When she got to the part where Eleanor *_puts on a face that she keeps in a jar by the door_* - our teacher started crying - I mean really crying. The room was deathly silent as she composed herself - and as I sat there - Eleanor Rigby became one of the favorite songs of my life - because I got it - lyrics mean things.
Wow, thanks for sharing. I’m also proud to have been taught Eleanor Rigby in 7th grade (in 2003). Our teachers knew what was up!
This song feels intensely sad and beautiful at the same time. I was in tears the first time I heard it. Both the lyrics about loneliness and poverty and the music hit hard. It was part of the Yellow Submarine movie and the blast from the horns neatly coincides with an animation of the chimneys suddenly violently belching smoke. It helped me put things in perspective when I felt quite down during my late teens. Thank you for mentioning "She's Leaving Home". A sad song as well, but great to sing for yourself and the moment that the harmony comes when two melodies are sung below each other, the long maintained chords singing She's Leaving Home in long notes while the faster main melody and lyrics are spun below that. So beautiful :-).
Horns?
@@LarixusSnydes
This is closer to a podcast than a music reaction. Fantastic job.
This was greatest deep dive into Eleanor Rigby imaginable. It’s noteworthy that in the second to last chorus they sing “Lovely People” with the more emphatic vocals. It’s to say that those lonely people are also lovable. Brilliant song. Brilliant analysis Amy. Thanks Virgin Rock
You explained it so well. Some people are skeptical when someone analyzes a piece of art, and say the reviewer reads too much into it. But many times the artist creates by instinct, and the meaning is there even if he/she didn't think of that consciously.
And then the artist reads the analysis and realizes where in themselves the art came from, even if unknown at the start. This isn't always true, but sometimes, the art is deeper than the artist knew.
One of your best reactions - well done. I think you captures all the elements of this masterpiece, including an important one as I see it: The point of having father McKenzie in the song is to have two lonely people coming to the same place in years without ever connecting. The story is that so many people pass through life without noticing each other. It's a very sad an melancholic song of missed opportunities of what life could be. And I am glad you also caught the meaning of '..was buried along with her name'. The lyrics are brilliant - so much said in so few lines, and the music match the lyrics perfectly, like you point out very clearly.
Hello, Virginia. I'm Brazilian, I'm 67 years old, and I've been listening to the Beatles since I was a child, because my older sister was a Beatlemaniac. Only when I was an adult and more mature did I realize how brilliant they were. I understood that Eleanor Rigby's lyrics portrayed the human loneliness created by the cosmopolitan society that emerged 6,000 years ago, when it became "sedentary" and isolationist, unlike prehistoric times, when we were "nomads - hunter-gatherers", we lived in groups and everything was for everyone. In some tribes there was not even the pronoun "I", but only "we". As I said, I'm referring to the lyrics, because I've never heard anyone explain the melody like you. I thought your explanations were brilliant. Congratulations.
Olá, Virgínia. Sou brasileiro, tenho 67 anos e ouço Beatles desde criança, pois minha irmã mais velha era beatlemaníaca. Somente quando adulto e mais maduro percebi quão geniais eles foram. Entendi que a letra de Eleanor Rigby retratava a solidão humana criada pela sociedade cosmopolita surgida há 6000 anos, quando se tornou "sedentária" e isolacionista, ao contrário da pré-história, quando éramos "nômades - caçadores coletores", vivíamos em grupo e tudo era para todos. Em algumas tribos sequer havia o pronome "eu", mas apenas "nós". Como disse, refiro-me à letra, pois jamais ouvi quem explicasse a melodia como você. Achei brilhante suas explicações. Parabéns.
Of all the Beatles' songs I think this one would be the most appreciated by a Classical musician.
"Because" is a serious contender
That's why she's reacting to it. As if it's her first time hearing it though, give me a break! People lie so freely these days.
A very insightful analysis. It's amazing to see someone, on their first listen, notice aspects of this music that I've missed, even after listening to this song for most of my life. I think we often pick up on certain internal patterns in great music unconsciously when listening. It's similar to how Paul McCartney, who wrote this song without any formal knowledge of musical structure or harmony. Apparently guided by his intuition. Or whatever it is that gives someone this kind of talent,
This is absolutely stunning. A highly detailed, unbiased dissection and appreciation of a 60 year old piece of the soundtrack of my youth - an hour devoted to a 2 minute piece of music. A half hour passes before we get past the introduction, and I am rivited. While listening to Amy, I am convinced this is a significant event, and I'm amazed it's not been done before. Thank you.
Sir Paul is out of this world .He's a pure genius .
Frank Zappa, known for his eclectic and often satirical musical style, once expressed his thoughts on The Beatles' song "Eleanor Rigby." He admired the song's composition and the way it blended classical elements with rock music. Zappa acknowledged that The Beatles' ability to integrate orchestral instruments, like the string quartet in "Eleanor Rigby," demonstrated their innovative approach to music. He also appreciated the song's dark and introspective lyrics, which were a departure from the typical pop themes of the time.
I've cherished the intense feelings of this lyrical tale since I was a kid in 1966. Thanks for letting us know what makes it great.
Recorded 12 days before Paul McCartney's 24th birthday. He was 23 years old when he wrote it..
Gawd...and while he stands unique in that era, he had a BUNCH of 23-year-olds in his 'industry' in those years. I hope we still have those. I always wondered how Paul wrote this song - I assume "on the piano" - but he had access to cellos and violins IF he wanted. And for more experienced fingers, he had George Martin who I credit with final orchestration.
But the Beatles wrong the song
her video is too chopped up ---- technical and correct and totally unenjoyable.
@@odurandina Yes, I can understand why you don't find her videos enjoyable.
When Paul started recording Sgt Pepper, the Beatles 8th album, he was still only 24 years old.
He began recording Rubber Soul, Revolver and Sgt Pepper between the ages of 23 and 24.
It's outrageous.
Thank you for this, Amy. I love the way that you broke the song down and, with your classically trained ear, offered a different perspective on a classic song.
Paul sitting in ‘Eleanor Rigby’s’ kitchen listening to her stories …… and that’s why Paul has always been my favorite Beatle ✌🏼
Like Beaver Cleaver and Gus the fireman?
He always sounds like a nice guy.
his songs compared to john and george are so much worse imo
@@thomaskoukouris4070 His songs are geared towards pop. John's are geared toward experimental. Harrison I don't know as much. I think he's kind of between the two? Ringo's work is mostly voice acting (Thomas the tank engine).
@@thomaskoukouris4070 LOL...sure.
When i hear the song, i think of the phrase "People living lives of quiet desperation", it's a song for everyone who never made it, never realized any dreams, never found their soul mate, never got any lucky breaks, they aren't really living, just existing. Paul saw the Darkside of that and commented on it.
Personally, I saw this song as the opposite. Both had lived full lives, and now all that they loved were gone so they only had themselves and were existing on memories.
"Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way. The time is gone. The song is over. Thought I'd something more to say." :)
@@ElementaryPenguin It can definitely happen that way too. People can have a great life, then become isolated for many reasons, including through illness, disability, poverty, loss of partner, children moving far away and not coming to visit, and death or moving away of friends - or a combination of any such factors. I know, because it happened to me! And I always used to puzzle over the song too, when I was young. I never in a million years thought I might end up as one of those 'lonely people'. Fortunately, I have found ways to make my life meaningful and full despite my circumstances, just as Eleanor Rigby was no doubt trying to do by being involved in some way with her local church, and keeping a sociable face in that jar by the door just in case a visitor should arrive...
I like how the priests life was equally empty, at least that's how I Interpret it.
@@duanevp"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation."
Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience and Other Essays
No guitars, no drums, no rock keyboards. What other rock and roll band could pull this off? None! This is an example of the Beatles playing chess while all other bands were playing checkers.
Draughts lol.
You'd like Radiohead for the same reason. Listen to Pyramid Song and How to Dissappear Completely.
It’s very cathartic watching your reviews. Thank you. I had tears several times.
I think I needed the connection to my past again. Cheers xx
I was convinced I wouldn't listen to nearly an hour of review on a 3 min song.
Yet I did listen to it all. Shows how little I knew !
Hello EVERYONE, with Amy's first listen We Are All Together.😊
The song deserves it.
The quiet desperation reminds me of a William Blake poem. "I wander through each charter'd Street, near where the charter'd Thames does flow, and mark in every face I meet, marks of weakness, marks of woe.."
Solidarity brother.
OK, 8 minutes in and I have to interject something important concerning the quote from engineer Geoff Emerick. Emerick is mistaken here and contradicts every other authoritative first hand source when he describes George Martin suggesting strings and having to persuade a reluctant McCartney. *Emerick here conflates the story of Yesterday with the storty of Eleanor Rigby." That;'s exactly what happened with Yesterday in 1965, right down to the detail of Paul fearing it could be "too lush, too Mancini [sic. Mantovani]". The story with Eleanor Rigby as told by John Lennon, by George Martin, and by Paul himelf, is quite different:
According to John Lennon, Paul conceived the idea in the first place. ‘The violin backing was Paul’s idea,’ John said. ‘Jane Asher had turned him on to Vivaldi.’ Paul specified aspects of the score George Martin produced for the string arrangement which was based on Paul’s Vivaldi-inspired staccato piano: ‘I thought of the backing, but it was George Martin who finished it off,’ he said, adding ‘I just go bash, bash on the piano. He knows what I mean.’ He visited George Martin’s flat to rough out the score. ‘Paul told me he wanted the strings to be doing a rhythm,' said Martin. 'He played the piano and I played the piano, and I took a note of his music.’ Martin wrote out the string parts guided (he said) by the sound of a Bernard Herrmann film score. Paul also supervised the string recording session from the control room. His final instruction relayed via George Martin was to insist on ‘no vibrato,’ as he had done two years before for Yesterday.
In his recent 'The Lyrics' Paul describes it like this:
'George Martin had introduced me to the string-quartet idea through “Yesterday.” I’d resisted the idea at first, but when it worked I fell in love with it. So I ended up writing “Eleanor Rigby” with a string component in mind. When I took the song to George, I said that, for accompaniment, I wanted a series of E-minor chord stabs. In fact, the whole song is really only two chords: C major and E minor. In George’s version of things, he conflates my idea of the stabs and his own inspiration by Bernard Herrmann, who had written the music for the movie “Psycho.” George wanted to bring some of that drama into the arrangement. And, of course, there’s some kind of madcap connection between Eleanor Rigby, an elderly woman left high and dry, and the mummified mother in “Psycho.”'
[I should add that I'm very far from the first to notice memory errors in Emerick's essential but occasionally unreliable book, Here, There & Everywhere.]
Well interjected!
Appreciated, but FYI your second paragraph was quoted by Amy herself in this video. She made note of the conflicting stories.
@@Johnny_Socko Yes. Sorry. A case of premature interjection! But I think it helps to understand why Emerick's account is confused.
Wow! I've always thought the staccato violins reminded me specifically of the shower scene from "Psycho" but figured I was reading- or should say listening- too much into it. Bernard Hermann is the obvious connection. Thanks!
When your video spends twenty five minutes in the first seven seconds of a song, you know that song is special. 😁
this lady does go on and on.
I always found Father McKenzie was writing a sermon for Eleanor's funeral. Since she was alone, no one would attend the funeral, hence no one would hear the sermon.
I was going to say the same thing.
Writing sermon in mind not on paper.
"Father McKenzie, writing the words to a sermon that no one would hear."
Or is Father Mckenzie ALSO a "lonely person?" Maybe both things are true...
@@art.is.life.eternal Maybe. And maybe he is also an adulterer. The option he is also lonely is never substantiated anywhere in the text with not a single reference in the lyrics he is, so what makes more sense...
Father McKenzie is also lonely which is a supposition taken out of thin air with no lyrical backing, or is Father McKenzie just a regular priest who writes a sermon to a last farewell of Eleanor Rigby where nobody will come to listen to it because she was such a lonely person when she was alive, which is literally the lyrics?
But we are the mind looking own the lives of this souls closed in a body and scare to leave it. We are eternal like the atoms and space.
I love your breakdown! That "sigh" sound of the hopes and dreams fizzling out and dissipating could also symbolize the rice falling at the wedding and the soil falling at the grave- those few moments that jump out at us amidst the monotony of our lives and seem to give us a moment of excitement or hope before drifting away.....
Paul recalled the look of horror on the string players’ faces when they were asked to play an “add 7th” note.
Eleanor Rigby redefined what so many people did with strings in rock/pop music for ages...even to this day! 50 years later when Radiohead did "Burn The Witch" they sought something to break out of the Eleanor Rigby mold and I think they managed it. Some other key string/orchestral parts in popular music that spring to mind include Moody Blues "The Night" (1967), Serge Gainsbourg's 1971 album, and Elton John's Madman Across The Water, also from 1971. Appreciate your detailed thematic analysis on this one, you had different assumptions than I did on some things that will change how I listen to this in the future!
The Beatles are quite worthy of this professional-level critical analysis, and you are more than worthy of being the one to do it. This is a remarkable treasure-trove of insight and knowledge. Thank you, from a lifetime Beatles fan who is learning something new from every word you speak! I am only 20min into this, but I had to pause to comment before my thoughts moved any further along. Back to it...
Hi Amy, I'm Marco and I'm writing to you from Italy. I've been following your channel since you opened it and I find it absolutely interesting. First of all, excuse me for the mistakes but my English is not the best. I've been a Beatles fan since I was 14, now I'm 58 and you can imagine how much I've listened to them, I couldn't wait for you to get to Revolver because as far as I'm concerned, it's from this album that the lyrics and music become more interesting. I saw the video on Taxman and I just finished Eleonor Rigby; your analyses and explanations on the musical passages are interesting and enlightening even if I'm just a terrible guitarist.
I don't know if you've read Geoff Emerick's autobiography, but in that book there are explained so many technical things that he, Martin and the Beatles themselves used from Revolver to Abbey Road: for example, it was Paul who asked Geoff that the violins had to sound very "sharp" and Geoff brought the microphones very close to the instruments during the recording phase.
If you want to listen to the Only Strings version, you can find it on CD 1 of Anthology 2.
P.S. I'm impatient and curious about what you'll say when you get to track 14...
Bye bye from Italy
Again it was very pleasant to watch this reaction 👌😃 The intensity in this song ... you named it strikingly well. I really got goosebumps sometimes when you pointed this out ...
A vivid colourful street scene ... people walking in both directions ... isolated, no connection to each others ... great description 😊👍 No place for melisma in the music, so appropriate! The eloquence of the Beatles ❤️😊👌
I just stumbled across your masterful deconstruction of this classic of the Beatles repertoire. As a Boomer, I remember where I was when the originality of the song struck me--standing on a dock looking out over a lake. It was not long before I hit the subscribe button, as I would like to listen to at least one of your videos a day, time permitting. The year prior to the release of Revolver 1965, the Fab 4 released an album, Rubber Soul, that brought a new level of sophistication to their music, and Revolver is in a way the culmination of that transformation. I see you have done some takes on songs from that album. The shift was prompted by the group's experience in the US tour and their decision to cease touring. Hence it was produced with far more studio time devoted to any previous album. It look forward to viewing your dissection.
The true genius starts with Revolver. The albums from here on in are all unique (even Let it Be). The despair and desolation at the end of this song is complete. Then the next song is so different in music and tone…and the next one, and the next one. Please, don’t miss any songs from Revolver, there is so much texture and variety.
I disagree. That genius was there from the beginning. I'm sure you're aware that every song from A Hard Day's Night was a Lennon/McCartney original. When The Beatles recorded it, John Lennon was 23 and Paul McCartney 21. The collective genius may have developed, but just consider the breadth of the songs they wrote before Revolver. What was so stunning about the early Beatles was how catchy almost all of their songs were. Just this morning, Facebook, which knows me too well, offered me a short of When I Get Home. I adore that song, and Lennon's multi tracking of the vocal is exhilarating. The guitar work and the drumming and the singing are like an absolutely wonderful assault.
@@bobtaylor170The Beatles are strange in that way. You sort of go from the highest peaks most people could imagine at the time to even higher peaks than anyone could imagine. And then you go higher. And yet it often astonishes me that after they broke up, the members all produced amazing music (even Ringo at times) but nothing that ever again had the cultural and artistic impact of what they produced together.
@@patricknelson5151 very true! It's freakish that they did what they did, nothing less.
@@bobtaylor170I love the early stuff too but from Revolver they became a studio band and took music to a new place, using that musicality to great effect. They could always write great tunes. Many bands have been experimental but none have married that to the Beatles level of songwriting.
@@jenscee7679 , true. Our only difference is that I maintain that most of their early songs show that genius.
You've outdone yourself with this analysis. In '66, hearing this for the first time, I cried. Years later, John Prine's song ' Hello in There' evoked the same response. Cheers, --bd
A masterpiece!! Thank you very much for another excellent reaction/analysis Amy. Thanks Vlad!
A most pleasing analysis, Amy! Eleanore Rigby is one of my fave Beatles songs and I must have listened to it over a thousand times (no exaggeration!) I gained a lot from your take, musically, of course, but also from your rather articulate "sense" of the song itself. I am enriched. My genuine thanks! 🙂
Re: weddings. It used to be common in the UK for women to congregate at churches for weddings, to see the spectacle, comment on the wedding dress, flowers, etc. I guess it was kind of a free show for them, where they could imagine themselves in a similar situation. Perhaps the kind of thing that a friendless spinster might yearn for.
First time viewer. A reactor who actually knows music, music theory and it's development over centuries and deep dives into contemporary masterpieces such as this. Scribed.
It's expressive, it's profound, and it's also simple in its writing. And the string arrangement suit perfectly well to this lyrics.
Great song by the Beatles. Thank you for this analysis.
Regards from Argentina.
The Beatles are their own genre.
Absolutely! It's called Beatlesque!🌹👍
Well said!
@@koralart Thanks! ✌️
I LOVE this channel. I have been a Beatles Fan my whole life. It’s so nice to have a fresh set of ears listening and analyzing their music. I love that you are following the songs and in order so we can better understand their growth. I also like that you are not reading anything BEFORE the song.
Also, Howard Goodall is a composer and music historian. He had a good documentary on how the Beatles changed Pop,Rock, AND Classical music.
People who like this channel will really like that documentary.
Amy, you should watch it, but AFTER the 150 series is completed.
A little tip about Beatles songs, the writer is as far as I can tell, is always the singer 😊
Almost always…but John and Paul wrote songs for George and Ringo to sing as well.
You're right, but there are exceptions: Day tripper for instance ... and there you have A hard day's night : as far as I know, John wrote the whole song, and Paul sings the bridge (if you like).
@@fernandodeleon7466 they did each other's middle 8's often. Same with Day in the Life, it's a John song, but Paul does the bridge.
@@jimchabai3163 for sure, but in that case Paul wrote the bridge
Brilliant analysis, Amy. You made me see things even I didn't think of after 58 years of listening to this! Or may be I did, but never quite recognised it. Can't wait for Here, There and Everywhere!
I was waiting for it!
This was written in the 1960s, only 20years after the end on WWII. Many people were still afftected by loss of loved ones, or the Blitz...
And the First World War. A woman's expectations were marriage and children. So many men lost in the wars left women out of society even as they grieved.
Perhaps even more significantly, Eleanor Rigby would have been one of that generation of young women who had their future torn away from them, when their young husbands, lovers, and fiancés where killed in the trenches of WW I. I recall, as a child in the 1960s, the legions of older maiden aunts, who were of that generation. Eleanor Rigby was one of them, perhaps haunted by that wedding that might, in another world, have been hers along with a family.
One of the five favorites of all Beatles songs.
Same ✌🏼
Me too. It feels like I've walked into a room of people having intense conversations. A humming cacophony of different voices, confused and stressed.
Love it!
Mesmerising video!!!! Thanks a lot; you make my days always better!!!!
I was waiting for this, Amy, I had a feeling you'd connect with it.🙂
The strings are meaty, very sophisticated.
I love this song so much. It's a masterpiece.
I have always loved your musical knowledge as you cover the Beatles music and so pleased you can now play the track again x
I was around seven when this came out and my family had the album; this song always scared the crap out of me and, being around seven years old, I had no idea why. Your musical breakdowns are very nice to hear. Be well.
"There will be time to prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet" TS Eliot
"Wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door..." -- McCartney
And which is the better line? I know my choice.
Beat poet Allen Ginsberg thought very highly of this lyric. On a visit to Ezra Pound in Rapallo, Ginsberg played this for him.
I recall watching a TV show at the time where someone did a dramatic recitation of the lyrics to Eleanor Rigby. Reading your comment now, I believe it was Ginsberg.
I was glad to hear that, I remember when Ginsberg praised the lyrics of Dylan's A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall. I always wondered what he would think of some Beatles songs, since Ginsberg was interested in rock poetry.
I interpreted the face in a jar by the door the same way you did…the face you put on to show the world as you leave your front door. Paul may have been thinking of cold cream, but the line says so much more than that.
It's both
It's makeup AND it's a public mask
Oh yes, and I must say I very much enjoyed your musical analyses. Reminds me of how I use to like talking with a musical friend about.
The strings are very reminiscent of the striking ones in Psycho the Hitchcock movie from 1960. Very abrupt and striking .. which fits in with the subject matter perfectly.. distressing and stark at the same time .. genius … no one had heard this type of “pop” music in 1966 and follows on from the bitterness from Taxman perfectly
Great comment ✌🏼
Awesome comment 👍😊
Very well put, you have a great musical mind there my friend 😊 👍
Well, that's what Paul and George Martin have said - it was Paul's sonic idea, transmitted to GM, who translated it, inspired by the famous Psycho 'stabbing' shower scene music by Bernard Herrmann, into a strings arrangement, which was then edited by Paul to get the exact sound he heard in his head.. Although I'm not entirely sure whether it was Paul or George who first got the Psycho idea...
Scored by the legendary composer Bernard Herrman, whose final score was for the movie "Taxi Driver" starring Robert DeNiro.
This was a big one and I loved your reaction. Amazing what Paul and George Martin were able to do with such a simple structure. I think George Martin has earned his title as the 5th Beatle with you Amy.😉 I enjoyed your comments on the lyrics. Yeah, I don't think Father McKenzie is delivering his sermon to an empty church. It is just that they don't really hear what he is saying, and neither side connects with the other. This does bring it closer to the poetic vibe in "Sound of Silence" with people speaking without listening. Great reaction! I'm glad you enjoyed it so much and found so many things to say about it. Very nice closing words.
The contribution of George Martins influence should never be underestimated.
What I love about this song and the with the time you spent on the intro is like the saying, " you had me at hello". The intro grabs the attention and you have to learn more. Thank you. Great review.
Revolver is a very existential album. It's about consciousness, life, death, spirituality, etc. It's extremely bold, especially at the time. Even Taxman mentions death. One extra point about Eleanor Rigby is that the high staccato strings are reminiscent of the film Psycho. Anyway, I'm keen to see what she thinks of "Got To Get You Into My Life" and "Tomorrow Never Knows", although I can't imagine her saying much about the last song's music as it stays on one chord and has lots of special effects.
Death. Taxes. Existence
Your observations are genius. I loved what you said about how Eleanor's life would have changed had she had a young Paul McCartney show up at her door and help her...
As soon as i saw you were doing this i was like I can't wait for your reaction to this. And i was correct. It took me a while to truly appreciate this song . But i knew there was something special about it.
Love to see you just do a straight reaction and smiles.
At first I thought you were milking it ( 25 minutes )....but then I smiled, realized your love of strings and orchestration. Made me continue....
From west coast Canada 🇨🇦, peace.
( ps. Love to hear more, by ear harp playing to the songs reacted! ).
I really enjoyed your analysis of this piece. You have great insight and really bought this piece to life for me. The Beatles are simply the best and hopefully after your journey through their music you will agree with Vlad and me!
Wow! That was a fantastic synopsis on the song. What hit me most among others was the lyric that I thought said "Aw look at all the lonely people" to "I look at all the lonely people". That is a big difference.
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The song that changed rock and roll - it blew everyone's mind on what rock (and pop) music could be.
It did! For the first time ever, serious music critics began to sit up and took notice. Until then, pop music was regarded with disdain, as cheap flash-in-the-pan trash for the youngsters who didn't know any better, to be discarded and forgotten tomorrow. No-one ever imagined a classical musician would be sitting down in 50 or 60 years time giving a 'pop' song serious analysis, or that people of all ages would still be listening and falling in love with it.
I watch her reactions (good on a musical level} but she doesn't have the context of the importance of one Beatles song vs another. Which ones were instant classics, and hits for all time (like Eleanor) or which ones were just good album tracks..
@@phila3884 I haven't bothered to watch many of these reactions recently because with such a wealth of brilliant Beatles songs to pick from, the choices for these YT videos (as opposed to those on her paid platforms) have been so humdrum - almost as if Vlad was picking the dullest or least consequential songs he could think of for her to analyse. Of course, it could just be me - perhaps others' taste is different. I found the same with the Queen selections.
And that's why the Beatles are Great. 🙂
There's a lot more I could say about the Beatles but I'll let others say it.
Thanks for the reaction - enjoyed it, but then I'm high. Especially enjoyed the first few measures...first listen? Not what you expected? ;-)
Not a criticism, but you never got back to the 'modal' character of the vocal melody. It goes through C# rather than the more usually expected C natural as the 6th note in the key of E minor. This means it's in the Dorian mode. Perhaps that's what Paul felt gave it a slightly exotic, maybe Eastern feel. But this mode (scale) can be heard in traditional British and Irish music, and also in some Gregorian chant, which makes an interesting connection with the characters in the song.
I can see it as rock because rock has a HUGE umbrella. That's exactly what I LOVE about rock.
Excellent analysis of the music and lyrics. Thank you.
I have always considered this song a direct response to The Rolling Stones "Paint it Black" which came out a few months earlier. Rock music started to turn away from the sunshine and rainbows and delving into real topics of real life that there is sadness, loneliness, depression and heartbreak out there.
I always considered Paint It Black a response to Lennon's Norwegian Wood, sitar and all.
in my own timeline of Beatle history, "Eleanor Rigby" and "Yellow Submarine," which appear on Revolver, mark the beginning of the psychedelicized Victoriana-Edwardiana of the group's middle period. Not only were the songs released, at the time of the album's release, as a double-A single; they were followed by the double-A "Penny Lane" and "Strawberry Fields," which furthered their themes and were recorded when the Sgt. Pepper project was getting under way. "Sgt. Pepper" was the period's high point (obviously) and was followed by the single of "Hello Goodbye" and the Lewis-Carroll-ish "I am the Walrus." Those two songs were included on "Magical Mystery Tour," which was released right after them and with which this period fades away. The song "Magical Mystery Tour" itself, with its psychedelicized bus trip of the kind with which, I'll guess, the Beatles were familiar in their Liverpool childhoods, is more or less the period's ending, the group's last treatment of the English life that, in a way, this music swept into history. Compare, with the "Sgt Pepper" cover, the unpsychedelic Northern England brass band at the following:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_brass_band#History
From Liverpool and Manchester, in the early 1800s, came the first phase of the modern industrial world. From Liverpool again, via the Beatles, came the goodbye to it. Hello, Goodbye.
PLAY THE SONG!!!!!!!!!!!!
I once met Paul McCartney at Abbey Road Studios, quite by chance, had a nice conversation about music. He is indeed a very nice man.
Truly great song. Really enjoyed your reaction. So interesting.
Well done! Thanks for the insight.
What a detailed analysis! Once again, kudos Amy!
In at least one interview Paul went on the explain the ''face' in the 'jar by the door' as being cold cream. He adds "My mum’s favourite cold cream was Nivea, and I love it to this day. That’s the cold cream I was thinking of in the description... I was always a little scared by how often women used cold cream". Thanks for your detailed analysis. Earlier this morning I was checking my references for a book I have been writing relating to an aspect of Bristol's history. The reference was to the warehouse of Rigby & Evens which was certainly in the same street as the Old Vic. This afternoon your talk popped up (I'd forgotten this track was going to be next) How about that for a coincidence?!
from that era my mother used Ponds cold cream
This song is another example of the massive contribution George Martin made to the Beatles’ success. His ability to actually orchestrate things like string quartets, trumpet solos and full orchestra crescendos took the band to the absolute next level.
I LUV you and your discourse❣️
25 minutes on the first 10 seconds of the song - amazing
Scored by George Martin using a string octet, ( 4 violins, 2 violas, 2 cellos, ) he referenced Bernard Herrmann's Psycho music for the staccato quality. Paul wrote the song with lyrical input from John, George and Ringo. He is the main vocal with harmonies by John and George. An astonishing entry on the Revolver album. Influenced many other groups to utilize orchestral instruments, ( Rolling Stones' Ruby Tuesday for instance. ) Brilliant!😊😊😊
I think it was this song that got english language teachers in England setting Beatles songs for their classes to analyse. Your reaction and analysis deserves an A++
Keep Reacting!
I was 22 when Revolver was released. I had always loved music of all kinds but this album opened up new and wonderful directions. I consider myself priveliged to have grown up in this time and I greatly appreciate your lengthy (for that is what it deserves) analysis of these songs. We had heard some of the songs prior tp release but to go out on the day to my local record store and bring this treasure home will always stay in my memory. Placing the new disc on the turntable. lowering the stylus and entering a new world of music.
You have mentioned many things bout this album so far which is great but may I just mention also the fabulous sleeve design by the Beatles good friend Klaus Voorman (from their Hamburg days) which was/is a work of art in tis own right.
Thanh you for this review and I look forward to the next song "Im Only Sleeping".
If Rigby was pure McCartney Sleeping is pure Lennon,
Thanks again.
I've been waiting for you to hear this one. To me this is an absolute masterpiece, both as a very expressive song about a very particular state of so many human beings (I grew up among such elderly, lonely people) and technically, every bit of the accompaniment (If we can call it simply an accompaniment) is what is should be.
And there's a lot of finesse, small, yummy contrapuntal moments that I enjoy so much!
It does make me sad indeed. But then so does Mahler - although in a very different sense.
But that's one of the jobs of all art isn't it?
Often it can and should turn our world upside down, make us sad or mad or question our own thoughts and beliefs. Rock music does that more often than not, that's part of why I love it.
Maybe the Czech writer Bohumil Hrabal was right when he said:
“No book worth its salt is meant to put you to sleep, it's meant to make you jump out of your bed in your underwear and run and beat the author's brains out.”
lol! 😀
I had a Czech visual artist friend who would probably have felt something of that sort about art in general. Those crazy Bohemians...
I'll admit I do have some books though, that I treasure specifically because of their soothing, drifting quality, to read after the laptop goes off before going to sleep. Puts the brainwaves and nervous system into a more spacious, less focused pattern. It doesn't have to be dumb, just another form of the writers' craft.
Amazing that such a deeply compassionate, melancholy, yet wise song could be written by a guy in his twenties!
Thankful to God that my Church is full of faithful and compassionate ,very kind and caring friends and prayer-warriors!
Such a great song requires a great analysis, and Amy delivers!! Thank you!
I have listened to this song what I now hear forthe filt time is "aaaaaaae" Which is a drawn out open 'I", with a snag at the end that makes it 1st person singular. Now, it is an embed. Thank you.
Allen Ginsberg interpreted the line "All of the lonely people where do they all come from?" as referring to the fans of the Beatles who become hysterical, line the streets, hotel lobbies, etc following the Beatles when they are on tour.
George Harrison has been credited for adding the line "Wearing the face she keeps in a jar next to the door." The public persona she projects concealing her true state.
Thanks again, Amy - love the harp demos. However, you missed mentioning that very neat trick at the end.. doubling the vocal refrains for ‘Ah, look at..’ and ‘All the lonely people..’ - perfect little coda. Look forward to your analysis of She Said, She Said.. a typically Lennon exercise in tempo changes (see also ‘Good Morning, Good Morning’ on the Pepper album).
Ha Vivaldi! I love your expression Amy. This is such a treat for me to hear your analysis. Hey Schubert is wonderful too. Ty
As always another interesting reaction. I have a few comments on the lyrics. I had read that Paul had the first two verses and wasn't sure where to go with the last verse. To sum up the storyline, supposedly he got help from his bandmates. And even though he knew it had to do with loneliness, it was George Harrison who came up with the line "look at all the lonely people". Also, Paul's original line was Father McCartney and later changed to McKenzie.
Top 10 song for me for sure. I always saw Eleanor Rigby as the church secretary listening to this song.
Dorian mode is what I think it is. The C# in the verse melody with a song that basically has 2 chords, Em and C. How do they get away with that, and make it sound that good? A perfect string arrangement by George Martin, the movement of the violins later in the song, and using the cellos to play the melody and shadow Paul's voice in the third verse. Plus, George picks the right ensemble for the job. I've heard full orchestras play this, but the only way it sounds right to me is to do it with a string octet, and I think Paul's honest, sort of naive voice really helps here. What would be cool with a full orchestra would be if they could use this as an introduction or allegro giving the third person perspective, and have the next section be more serene music (use the flutes, woodwinds, etc.) that speaks to the woman's and the priest's first person POV of their lot in life, and then a conclusion that revisits the theme from this song and puts it all together.
What really made me happy is that I was thinking of Vivaldi's "Winter" at work today, and the immediacy of the strings in that piece, and how well that portrays the desolation of winter. Thinking of this song did remind me of that, if only because it is portraying loneliness with music. String-wise, I'd always heard he wanted something that sounded like Bernard Herrmann's score for "Psycho". I prefer the comparison to Vivaldi, and apparently, I also need to start listening to more of Schubert's work.
I think you are really going to like the rest of this album.
The misery of it is precisely why it is so beautiful and rewards multiple listens
I think the lyric: "wearing a face that she keeps in a jar by the door", perfectly explains a person like the Milkman, Postman, Rent Collector. . . Etc calling to be paid, so before she opens the door, she dons a happy face as she speaks to the caller and pays the bill but after closing the door her happy face turns sorrowful again.
I think Elanor Rigby lived in a flat near that church - I think she saw the activity - the people there for the wedding coming and going...I think from a window she saw the Bride and Groom coming out and she say the rice being thrown...I think she sighed and imagined herself as the bride alas never to be. I think she waited for all the people to be gone and Elanor Rigby walked over to the church and she bent down and scooped up a handful of rice - the impulse to touch the rice - the tactile experience of holding the rice gave her a moment of vicarious pleasure - for a brief moment eyes closed and rice in her hand Elanor was that Bride - for a brief moment Elanors' lonliness was forgotten.
Do not forget that Elanor Rigby is one song amongst the other songs on the album Sgt Peppers LONELY HEARTS CLUB BAND...an album that tells a story that recognizes that there are indeed a lot of lonely people out there in society. Isolated lonely people and Sgt Pepper and his band of performers are there to give them some joy if only temporarily. Those who belong to this proverbial "lonely hearts club" are given a reason to smile and to feel a part of something and not so alone - for a while.
In one of the interviews with Paul, he said that he and George Martin had discussed composer Bernard Herman with regard to the sound of the violins that they were trying to achieve. PS I wis you could see A Hard Days Night, so you could see the guys and exoerience their personalities
I like how Amy goes on for 25 minutes talking about the first 15 seconds of the song.