She's Leaving Home
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| “She's Leaving Home” | ||
|---|---|---|
| Song by The Beatles | ||
| Album | Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band | |
| Released | 1 June 1967 | |
| Recorded | Abbey Road Studios 17 March 1967 |
|
| Genre | Baroque Pop, Ballad | |
| Length | 3:35 | |
| Label | Parlophone | |
| Writer | Lennon/McCartney | |
| Producer | George Martin | |
| Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band track listing | ||
|
Side one
Side two |
||
"She's Leaving Home" is a song, written and sung by John Lennon and Paul McCartney, and released in 1967 on The Beatles album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. McCartney wrote and sung the verse and Lennon the chorus.
Contents |
[edit] Background
Paul McCartney:
| “ | John and I wrote 'She's Leaving Home' together. It was my inspiration. We'd seen a story in the newspaper about a young girl who'd left home and not been found, there were a lot of those at the time, and that was enough to give us a story line. So I started to get the lyrics: she slips out and leaves a note and then the parents wake up ... It was rather poignant. I like it as a song, and when I showed it to John, he added the long sustained notes, and one of the nice things about the structure of the song is that it stays on those chords endlessly. Before that period in our song-writing we would have changed chords but it stays on the C chord. It really holds you. It's a really nice little trick and I think it worked very well. While I was showing that to John, he was doing the Greek chorus, the parents' view: 'We gave her most of our lives, we gave her everything money could buy.' I think that may have been in the runaway story, it might have been a quote from the parents. Then there's the famous little line about a man from the motor trade; people have since said that was Terry Doran, who was a friend who worked in a car showroom, but it was just fiction, like the sea captain in "Yellow Submarine", they weren't real people.[1] |
” |
The newspaper story McCartney mentioned was from the front page of the Daily Mirror, about a girl named Melanie Coe. Although McCartney made up most of the content, Coe, who was 17 at the time[2] claims that he got most of it right. Her parents wondered why she had left... "She had everything she wanted". In real life, Melanie did not "meet a man from the motor trade", but instead a croupier, and left in the afternoon while her parents were at work. She was found ten days later because she had let slip where her boyfriend worked.[citation needed][3]
Coincidentally, Coe had met McCartney three years earlier when she was a contestant and prize winner on ITV's Ready Steady Go!.
The line in the song "fun is the only thing money can buy," contradicts the sentiment made in "Can't Buy Me Love," several years earlier.
[edit] Recording
The day before McCartney wanted to work on the string arrangement, he learned that George Martin was not available to do the score. He contacted Mike Leander, who did it in Martin's place. It was the first time a Beatle song was not arranged by Martin (and the only time it was done with The Beatles' consent - Phil Spector's orchestration of Let It Be was done without The Beatles' knowledge). Martin was hurt by McCartney's actions, but he produced the song and conducted the string section. The harp was played by Sheila Bromberg, the first female musician to appear on a Beatles record.[4][5]
[edit] Credits
- Paul McCartney: double-tracked lead vocals.
- John Lennon: double-tracked background vocals.
- Mike Leander: strings arrangment.
- George Martin: conductor and producer.
[edit] Cover versions
- In 1967, Harry Nilsson covered this song on Pandemonium Shadow Show.
- In 1972, Syreeta covered this song on Syreeta.
- In 1976, Bryan Ferry covered the song for the evanescent musical documentary All This and World War II.
- In 1983, Richie Havens covered this song on "Richard P. Havens 1983".
- In 1988, Billy Bragg's version of the song, a double A-side with Wet Wet Wet's "With a Little Help from My Friends" which reached #1 in the UK.
- In 1994, Al Jarreau released a cover version of this song on his live album Tenderness.
- In 2001, BuddhaTrek covered this song on BuddhaTrek I.
- In 2004, Branimir Krstic, classical guitarist and composer [1], arranged and performed the song on "Sgt. Pepper for Classical Guitar", the first full classical rendition of Sgt. Pepper.
- in 2005, Brad Mehldau and his trio performed a version on their album Day is Done.
- In 2007, the American Idol finale featured a tribute medley from Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, in which the song was performed by Carrie Underwood.
- In 2007, Magic Numbers re-recorded the song for It Was 40 Years Ago Today, a television film with contemporary acts recording the album's songs using the same studio, technicians and recording techniques as the original.
- In September 2007, Brian Wilson, on 9/10-15, covered the tune as a final encore during his That Lucky Old Sun: A Narrative premiers at the Royal Festival Hall in London, England.
[edit] Notes
- ^ Barry Miles, Many Years From Now, p. 316
- ^ Steve Turner, A Hard Days Write
- ^ Steve Turner, "A Hard Day's Write", o. 127
- ^ George Martin with Jeremy Horsnby, All You Need Is Ears, p. 207-208
- ^ Mark Lewisohn, The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions, p. 103
