Paul McCartney came up with the melody of Eleanor Rigby as he experimented with his piano.

However, the name the of the protagonist he chose was not Eleanor Rigby but Miss Daisy Hawkins. Donovan reported that he heard McCartney play it to him before it was finished with completely different lyrics.[5] In 1966, McCartney recalled how he got the idea for his song:

A promotional poster for the single from the UK.

I was sitting at the piano when I thought of it. The first few bars just came to me, and I got this name in my head... 'Daisy Hawkins picks up the rice in the church'. I don't know why. I couldn't think of much more so I put it away for a day. Then the name Father McCartney came to me, and all the lonely people. But I thought that people would think it was supposed to be about my Dad sitting knitting his socks. Dad's a happy lad. So I went through the telephone book and I got the name 'McKenzie'.[6] Others believe that "Father McKenzie" refers to "Father" Tommy McKenzie, who was the compereat Northwich Memorial Hall.[7][8] McCartney said he came up with the name "Eleanor" from actress Eleanor Bron, who had starred with the Beatles in the film Help!. "Rigby" came from the name of a store in Bristol, "Rigby & Evens Ltd, Wine & Spirit Shippers", that he noticed while seeing his girlfriend of the time, Jane Asher, act in The Happiest Days of Your Life. He recalled in 1984, "I just liked the name. I was looking for a name that sounded natural. 'Eleanor Rigby' sounded natural." However, it has been pointed out that the graveyard of St Peter's Church in Liverpool, where John Lennon and Paul McCartney first met on the Woolton Village garden fete in the afternoon of 6 July 1957, contains the gravestone of an individual called Eleanor Rigby. Paul McCartney has conceded he may have been subconsciously influenced by the name on the gravestone.[9] Bizarrely, the real Eleanor Rigby lived a lonely life similar to that of the person in the song.[10] McCartney wrote the first verse by himself, and the Beatles finished the song in the music room of John Lennon's home at Kenwood. John Lennon, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, and their friend Pete

Shotton all listened to McCartney play his song through and contributed ideas. Starr contributed the line "writing the words of a sermon that no one will hear " and suggested making "Father McCartney" darn his socks, which McCartney liked. Shotton then suggested that McCartney change the name of the priest, in case listeners mistook the fictional character in the song for McCartney's own father.[11] The song is often described as a lament for lonely people[12] or a commentary on post-war life in Britain.[13][14] McCartney could not decide how to end the song, and Shotton finally suggested that the two lonely people come together too late as Father McKenzie conducts Eleanor Rigby's funeral. At the time, Lennon rejected the idea out of hand, but McCartney said nothing and used the idea to finish off the song, later acknowledging Shotton's help.[11] Lennon was quoted in 1972 as having said that he wrote 70% of the lyrics,[15] and in 1980 claimed that he wrote all but the first verse,[16] but Pete Shotton, Lennon's childhood friend, remembered Lennon's contribution as being "absolutely nil".[17] McCartney said that "John helped me on a few words but I'd put it down 80-20 to me, something like that."[18]

Musical structure[edit]
The song is a prominent example of mode mixture; specifically between the Aeolian mode, also known as natural minor, and the Dorian mode: the song, in E minor, is based on the chord progression Em-C, a chord progression in the Aeolian mode (utilizing notes 3, 6, and 7 in this scale; see article). The lead melody, however, is taken primarily from the somewhat lighter Dorian mode (minor scale with sharpened sixth degree; see article).[19] The song opens with a C-major vocal harmony ("Aah, look at all..."), before shifting to i (Em) on "lonely people"). The Aeolian C natural note returns later in the verse on the word "dre-eam" (C-B) as the C chord resolves to the tonic Em, giving an urgency to the melody's mood. The Dorian mode appears with the C# note (6 in the Em scale) at the beginning of the phrase "in the church".[20] The chorus beginning "All the lonely people" involves the viola in a chromatic descent to the 5th; from 7 (D natural on "All the lonely peo..") to 6 (C on "...ple") to 6 (C on"they) to 5 (B on "from"). This is said to "add an air of inevitability to the flow of the music (and perhaps to the plight of the characters in the song)".[21]

Historical artifacts[edit]

The gravestone of the "real" Rigby, St. Peter's Parish Church, Woolton, August 2008

In the 1980s, a grave of an Eleanor Rigby was "discovered" in the graveyard of St. Peter's Parish Church in Woolton, Liverpool, and a few yards away from that, another tombstone with the last name "McKenzie" scrawled