... the star of this column.

It's not one of my favorite Beatles songs, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have significant redeeming qualities. To my mind, one of the best of these is the fact that the entire orchestration is four violins, two violas and two cellos. But I don't really intend to offer an in depth critique of the song.

Still, a look at the words can't hurt. They can be found numerous times on the web. If anyone reading this needs them, here's one of those times. (On the other hand, too much of an analysis can perhaps be a hindrance.)

But a digression is already called for. I didn't need to find the words on the web in order to check them (nor the spelling - about thirty people have posted web pages with Eleanor misspelled as Elanor) - a printed version was sitting in Tzippi's files in a book of piano transcriptions of popular songs. But I did need to find the words in order to discover that for all these years I've known them and sung them (along with the radio) wrong. It was only when reading the words that I found on the web that I learned that the opening words are:

as opposed to: Now this isn't one of those highly significant misreadings that fill up the web pages of sites like Kiss This Guy, but it does carry a bit of interpretative weight. If the first word is Ah, then the look that follows is in the imperative. If, however, the first word is I, then the look is simply first person singular. But there's also a shift in emphasis because of that. In the case of Ah the singer is sermonizing, whereas in the case of I the singer is telling us his own reflections on something he's seen. I guess it's too late to tell John and Paul about this, but I prefer I and I'll probably continue to sing it that way.

In my search of materials for this column I also came across a parody of Eleanor Rigby with the refrain: All the Lonely Users. It's a somewhat different take, but I should at least acknowledge that others have found the possibility of computer generated loneliness in the song.


Go to: Eleanor Rigby Surfs the Web