page_title: Eleanor Rigby
section_title: Real people named Eleanor Rigby
hierarchical_section_title: Eleanor Rigby / Real people named Eleanor Rigby
caption_attribution_description: The grave of the "real" Eleanor Rigby, Woolton, Liverpool
context_page_description: "Eleanor Rigby" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their 1966 album Revolver. It was also issued on a double A-side single, paired with "Yellow Submarine". The song was written primarily by Paul McCartney and credited to Lennon–McCartney.
  The song continued the transformation of the Beatles from a mainly rock and roll- and pop-oriented act to a more experimental, studio-based band. With a double string quartet arrangement by George Martin and lyrics providing a narrative on loneliness, "Eleanor Rigby" broke sharply with popular music conventions, both musically and lyrically. Richie Unterberger of AllMusic cites the band's "singing about the neglected concerns and fates of the elderly" on the song as "just one example of why the Beatles' appeal reached so far beyond the traditional rock audience".
context_section_description: In the 1980s, the grave of an Eleanor Rigby was "discovered" in the graveyard of St Peter's Parish Church in Woolton, Liverpool, and a few yards (a few metres) away from that, another tombstone with the last name "McKenzie" scrawled across it. During their teenage years, McCartney and Lennon spent time sunbathing there, within earshot of where the two had first met during a fete in 1957. 
  Years later, McCartney said that the coincidence could be a product of his subconscious (cryptomnesia). In 2008, however, when a birth certificate was sold at auction of a woman named Eleanor Rigby, McCartney restated publicly: "Eleanor Rigby is a totally fictitious character that I made up ... If someone wants to spend money buying a document to prove a fictitious character exists, that's fine with me."
  An actual Eleanor Rigby was born on 29 August 1895 and lived in Liverpool, possibly in the suburb of Woolton, where she married a man named Thomas Woods on Boxing Day (December 26th), 1930. She died on 10 October 1939 of a brain haemorrhage at the age of 44 and was buried (though not "along with her name", as she will have been Eleanor Woods) three days later. Her tombstone has become a landmark to Beatles fans visiting Liverpool. A digitised version was added to the 1995 music video for the Beatles' reunion song "Free as a Bird".
  In June 1990, McCartney donated to Sunbeams Music Trust a document dating from 1911 which had been signed by the 16-year-old Eleanor Rigby; this instantly attracted significant international interest from collectors because of the coincidental significance and provenance of the document. The nearly 100-year-old document was sold at auction in November 2008 for £115,000. The Daily Telegraph reported that the uncovered document "is a 97-year-old salary register from Liverpool City Hospital". The name "E. Rigby" is printed on the register, and she is identified as a scullery maid. She also did many things for the Liverpool City Hospital.
caption: The gravestone of the "real" Eleanor Rigby, St Peter's Parish Church, Woolton, August 2008
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