Beatles: Eleanor Rigby Meaning

Song Released: 1966

Eleanor Rigby Lyrics

Ah, look at all the lonely people
Ah, look at all the lonely people

Eleanor Rigby picks up the rice in the church where a weddng
has been
Lives in a dream
Waits at the window, wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by
the door
Who is...

1. anonymous

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   Feb 23rd 2010 !⃝

   Well I agree with lcurtis.2006. Another thing is "buried along with her name" that of that no one cares about her.
2. anonymous

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   Feb 15th 2010 !⃝

   Eleanor Rigby and Father McKenzie are in love. But they feel the need to keep their love secret because it would be socially awkward (Eleanor is a young girl cleaning up at the church, McKenzie is a priest). Even though Anglican priests CAN get married.
   
   "Father McKenzie, darning his socks in the night when there's nobody there." Darning is (or was then) a woman's job, but Eleanor has died and is not there to do the job herself. "...Writing the words of a sermon that no-one will hear..." It's the wedding sermon, but nobody knows that they love each other.
   
   "Father McKenzie, wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave..." The priest is depressed that Eleanor has died, and wants to leave behind his grief. "...buried along with her name..." Eleanor is the last of her family line.
3. anonymous

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   Jan 20th 2010 !⃝

   I believe that the song is about an old women who sits at her house and dreams about how her life could have turned out. She imagines what her wedding would have been like. She also wears a face she keeps in a jar by the door(a better personality or fake smile) in order to fool friends, family, neighbors, ect. into thinking her life was better than it really was.
   
   When the Beatles speak of father McKenzie he is a lonely pastor in a dying church and has nothing better to do then to make sermons no one will hear and darn(sew holes up)his socks.
   
   Finally in the last verse of the song they bring the two lonely people in the death of Eleanor.She was buried along with her name means that no one will remember her. Adding to this is the fact that not a single person showed up to her funeral. Father Mckenzie buries the woman and then whips his hands free of dirt(forgets her) and leaves. NO one was saved(it is the pastors job to save souls at funerals and he didnt care about the women enough to save her soul)
4. Winnipegger

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   Oct 7th 2009 !⃝

   One must pay attention to the time frame in which the song was written, a time in which organized religion was falling into a decline. As Lennon would say at around the same time, "We're bigger than Jesus now", meaning that the Beatles were more important to the latest generation than religion was, which he felt only showed the decline of organized religion.
   
   As well, the song notes the inadequacy of religion in addressing basic fundamental human emotions, such as loneliness, in that it doesn't fill all of everyone's needs. If it did, there wouldn't be any lonliness in the world ("Ah, look at all the lonely people", which is repeated twice in order to emphasize the fact that there are many of them).
   
   The main character of the song is Eleanor Rigby, a lonely charwoman who works cleaning a church ("picks up the rice in a Church where a wedding has been"). She is very much on "the outside looking in"; while other people are celebrating their love, she is left with only the cleanup and nothing else. She "lives in a dream", probably the dream that she could have a significant other to share her life with, but the reality is the opposite. Despite this reality, she lets on to others that she is happy ("Waits at the window/wearing a face that she keeps in a jar by the door/Who is it for?").
   
   The question is, what can be done for people like Eleanor, and how did they get that way ("All the lonely people, where do they all come from?/All the lonely people, where do they all belong?")?
   
   Father McKenzie is also a lonely person who, while realizing that organized religion is no longer as important as it had been ("Father McKenzie, writing the words of a serman that no one will hear/no one comes near"), also resigns himself to the menial chores of life ("Look at him working/Darning his socks in the night when there's nobody there"), and he has further resigned himself to the fact that there's no answer for his loneliness ("What does he care?"), even in religion, and as a result he adopts a nonchalant attitude about it all.
   
   Eleanor actually dies twice ("Eleanor Rigby died in the church"), both figuratively (the spiritual/religious Eleanor, who no longer looked to religion to help solve her problems) and literally (on the job, while cleaning the church). She left no relatives and was the last of the Rigbys ("was buried along with her name"). She had no real friends because no one showed up at her funeral ("Nobody came").
   
   Both of these lonely people were brought together by Eleanor's death, but not in a way that was really beneficial to either. Father McKenzie was forced by reality to be both clergy and mourner at Eleanor's funeral ("wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave" -- he had to be the one to throw a handful of dirt on Eleanor's casket, because no one else was there to do so). McKenzie realizes that organized religion failed Eleanor ("No one was saved") because it didn't address what her life had become, nor did it give her any answers as to how to live her life in a way that was anything but lonely. By extension, he also failed Eleanor, by not understanding her reality.
5. anonymous

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   Oct 6th 2009 !⃝

   Eleanor Rigby:
   
   "Picks up the rice in a church where a wedding has been."
   
   She's terribly lonely, and has definitely not found true love, but wants to bitterly.
   
   She wears a face at the window, showing that she pretends to be fine and happy when she's miserable and alone.
   
   Father McKenzie spends time writing a sermon, and no one will really listen or care. He sews his socks and prepares, even though there isn't anything to prepare for.
   
   Eleanor dies and is buried, no one comes to her funeral, and even Father McKenzie doesn't care. She's buried "along with her name", which shows that she died without marrying, and her family name dies.
   
   Pretty bitter song.
   
   No one was saved.
6. ALT

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   Sep 18th 2009 !⃝

   Wow, there are some really interesting and unique interpretations of this some. It really strikes a chord with people on many levels. I disagree with some of the interpretations, but that doesn't make them wrong. So I thought I'd jump in with what (and why) I perceive is as being the meaning of Eleanor Rigby, one of the saddest and most beautiful songs ever.
   
   Opening abbreviated chorus prompts you to stop and consider all the lonely people of the world, such as...
   
   Eleanor is picking up the rice at the church AFTER the wedding is over and the guests have left. Narration purposely says that a wedding HAS recently taken place, it's not presently taking place, this is to clarify to the listener to visualize the scene with only Eleanor in the picture - otherwise you'd see the wedding gatherers and know it was a wedding, or you'd see only Eleanor and wonder what rice was doing in the church. Therefore, Eleanor came to the church to either tidy it up, or, as I believe, she came expressly to collect the rice to take home with her, because in her mind it symbolized marriage, the greatest treasure on earth (to her as a lonely woman). This also tells you how she's living in a dream world and not facing reality. She is now firmly in her own self created isolation, so she is mostly to blame for her loneliness.
   
   WAITS at the window... I think that she's watching the world go by and is putting up a facade that she's not lonely, but really - who is it for? No one is fooled by this, and yet know one is there to care.
   
   The Father writes the words of a sermon that no one will hear, as no one comes around. (Btw, notice it's a sermon and NOT a eulogy as some have misunderstood). It would seem that he also suffers from loneliness and depression. He either has no congregation or his words are wasted on them.
   Likely, his own isolation has allowed his work (and faith as we find out later) to suffer, and now his congregation has left him. A classic, unfortunate vicious cycle.
   
   He keeps to himself and fights his loneliness by working on his clothes, for instance, in the middle of the night. He has nothing better to do, and he really doesn't care that he's lonely. At least that's what he keeps telling himself!
   
   The full chorus asks us again where do these lonely people come from, and where do they belong. But this time, something interesting happens. The song suddenly and unexpectedly transposes upward and we again hear the brief opening chorus. This, to me, gives the feeling that a great deal of time has passed as the song "falls" back into its original feel in the final verse, where we learn...
   
   Eleanor has died in the church, she had lost her faith in God and given up her fight with depression, caused by her own self-induced/propagated loneliness. Her name was all she had in life, it'd never changed, and now is gone and forgotten - just like her.
   
   Father McKenzie wipes his hands as he walks from the grave, as many others have interpreted, is wiping his hands clean and dismissing from his guilt another life he could have helped save. However, we learn in the last line that he also was not saved.
   
   If the good Father would not have been so self-absorbed, by clinging to his position in the church after losing his faith and not steping down, and if Eleanor hadn't also been so lost in her own self-created delusions, perhaps the two of them would have met, thus saving each other.
   
   That's just one opinion though.
   
   Another point to consider is to take into account The Seven Deadly Sins (several of which are in the above interpretation).
   
   Regardless, it's one of my favorite songs ever.
7. goosegirl1

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   Aug 3rd 2009 !⃝

   I always thought the face she keeps by the jar in the door was makeup, but as some say it could be interpretated as a false smile, to hide the sorrow. All that can really be said about this song is that it is, quite ssimply, about lonlyness
8. anonymous

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   Jul 28th 2009 !⃝

   To VampGirl, It's about loneliness and sadness, and frankly, Father McKenzie doesn't care for Eleanor.
9. adastra

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   Jul 20th 2009 !⃝

   "wearing a face that she keeps in a jar by the door"
   ok...
   simple answer..
   FACE CREAM.... Makeup!..
10. anonymous

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    Apr 3rd 2009 !⃝

    I like to roll to this
11. anonymous

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    Mar 11th 2009 !⃝

    I have always thought that this song had a darker twist on it than just loneliness. It seems to me that Eleanor and Father Mackenzie were having a love affair, but Eleanor was too afraid to give Mackenzie her full identity ("wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door.")
    
    So we have a woman too afraid to give her whole self to her lover. The lover is angry when he finds out that Eleanor is keeping something from him, and he kills her without ever finding out who she is. So Eleanor Rigby is "buried along with her name." "Nobody came," because nobody knows she died.
    
    As for Father Mackenzie, he walks away " wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave." Forgetting her.
    
    And now he is lonely again.
    
    "Ah, look at all the lonely people! Where do they all come from?"
12. anonymous

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    Mar 8th 2009 !⃝

    I think that Eleanor Rigby is the devil in this song. It seems as if she's driving people away from her. Also the place, "where do they all belong" is hell.

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway
13. Effthesystem

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    Feb 11th 2009 !⃝

    'Father McKenzie wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave. No one is saved.' means exactly what it says, he was anxious to get on with his life and didn't bother to save someone who had been ignored his/her own life.
14. swaybaby

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    Jan 31st 2009 !⃝

    I remember riding in the car with my mom all the time growing up and hearing this son occasionally on the radio. One day I asked her what it was about and what she told me was that it was about a woman who lived a lonely, socially awkward life where she stayed at home waiting for a knight in shining armor to come and rescue her. She did work for the church but kept to herself all the time as a social barrier. Father McKenzie was an ignored, lonely person as well, even being the head of the church. No one cared about either one of them. Thats just what I was told and I listen to the song and hear it myself. It is scary to think of living life that way to the point of where you die no one even cares and no one comes to your funeral except the priest who is obligated to be there.
15. LOLA09

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    Jan 9th 2009 !⃝

    I think this song is about the sadness of the dead guy elanor rigby who felt lonely.. this is a very dark song.. the darkness is always felt.. he was very sad.. so he died.. that is wht this song is about. i like the darkness of the song.

    This interpretation has been marked as poor. view anyway

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