Struggling to revise for A level Music Eleanor Rigby? Well, struggle no longer: here is the ultimate guide to this set work.
Struggling to revise for A level music: Eleanor Rigby, and not sure where to start?
Panicking because there are only a few months left until the exam?
Not to worry, this is the place to be!
As an A* ex-A level music student myself, I know all the best tips and tricks for doing well in your exam. I have tried to make all this information as concise as possible so you can get the best value for your time spent reading. Using this guide to the Beatles’ Eleanor Rigby, you can boost your grades with as little effort as possible!
Make sure you write EVERYTHING down and learn it thoroughly. Reading alone will not help you absorb this information!
This article is all about A level music: Eleanor Rigby.
A Level Music: Eleanor Rigby
I’m tentatively assuming most of the people reading this will already have the A level Anthology of Music recommended by Edexcel. If not, here is a link to where you can buy it.
Amazon: A level music anthology
Unfortunately, the anthologies are ridiculously expensive. However, if you are lucky, you can find a second hand one on amazon or ebay.
Eleanor Rigby is not yet out of copyright, and won’t be for at least another seventy years. This means you won’t find sheet music for it for free online anywhere – legally, that is!
Context of Eleanor Rigby
The Beatles wrote Eleanor Rigby for their seventh studio album, Revolver, and they recorded it at EMI studios in Abbey Road. This was the first album the Beatles did not intend to perform live: in fact, they stopped touring that year. The band’s bassist, Paul McCartney, wrote it, although all the band members contributed some lines. Nevertheless, as was convention for the Beatles, the song is credited to Lennon-McCartney.
The Beatles are to this day considered the most influential popular music act of all time. They are also the most successful of all time, outselling every other artist by some considerable margin. The band caused such hysteria in the 60s that the phenomenon was even dubbed Beatlemania! Although they began as a rock and roll cover band, as the years went by the created works of Baroque pop, psychedelia, and folk rock, to name some examples.
The members of the Beatles were John Lennon (rhythm guitar), Paul McCartney (bass guitar), George Harrison (lead guitar) and Ringo Starr (drums). All of them sang some songs in the Beatles catalogue.
The themes Paul tackles in this song are… uncharacteristic of pop music, let’s say. For example, he tackles loneliness, death and old age. The story concerns Eleanor Rigby, an elderly lady, and Father McKenzie, a priest. Both are alone but meet at Eleanor’s funeral. Let me remind you that this is a song that hit number 1 in the UK!
Instrumentation of Eleanor Rigby
Paul is the lead singer of Eleanor Rigby as he was the song’s main writer. He has the range of a tenor, although he sings the notes an octave lower than written. Paul also sings backing vocals, along with John and George.
Unusually for a popular song, Eleanor Rigby has a string octet as an accompaniment. This consists of four violins, two violas, and two cellos. Most of the time two instruments play the same part, hence why there are only four instruments included in the score.
Classical music tends to use string instruments much more than popular music. This perhaps demonstrates Paul’s desire to broaden his musical horizons by looking to the past for inspiration.
The string parts include double stops, which means two notes played at the same time. These help thicken the texture.
Classically-trained George Martin, their producer, arranged the string parts following Paul’s suggestions. Paul was keen to create a new, exciting sound. He therefore instructed the players to use little vibrato (the fancy term for this is senza vibrato) and to play heavily accented staccato notes. They took inspiration from works by Vivaldi and Bernard Herrmann’s score for Psycho, two names you might recognise from elsewhere in the course!
Geoff Emerick, their sound engineer, was in charge of mixing the instruments. To help get that harsh, gritty sound the string have, he close-miked the strings. This is when microphones are placed right next to the instruments. Believe it or not, this was a revolutionary recording technique at the time, and it made EMI studios rather cross!
Structure of Eleanor Rigby
Eleanor Rigby begins with an 8-bar introduction, which helps establish our themes and story-line.
The song has three verses; each focuses on a character in our story. Firstly, verse one (bar 9) follows Eleanor Rigby. Verse 2 (bar 27) then introduces the character of Father McKenzie, and, finally, the third verse (bar 53) follows their final, tragically too-late meeting.
Unusually, the verses use two sets of 5-bar phrases. This is rather strange for pop songs, almost all of which use 4-bar phrases.
Each verse is followed by a refrain (bars 19 and 37). These consist of two 4-bar phrases.
At bar 45 there is a bridge, where Paul uses material from the introduction to add some variety to the song.
The song ends with an outro, which begins in bar 63. Here, the Beatles use a mixture of the introduction material and refrain material.
Tonality of Eleanor Rigby
Eleanor Rigby is in the Aeolian mode (aka the natural minor) based on E. Well, most of the time!
The song begins with a chord of C major, the relative major of E minor. This creates some tonal ambiguity, as we can’t work out what key we are in.
Whilst the chords of Eleanor Rigby generally use the Aeolian mode, the verse melody uses the Dorian mode. The Dorian mode is almost the same as the Aeolian mode, apart from the sharpened 6th degree of the scale. We can see the sharpened 6th in the C# in bar 10. This adds a folksy feeling to the melody as it reminds the listener of traditional English songs – think Scarborough Fair, which is also in the Dorian mode.
Our verse melody does, however, return to the Aeolian mode for the last bar of each phrase (e.g. bars 13 and 18). This means we once again have a flattened 6th (C natural), which perhaps represents a loss of any hope for Eleanor Rigby – the whimsical, folksy element of the melody is removed.
The technical term for mixing modes is modal interchange, and it was (and is) a rare thing in popular music.
Harmony of Eleanor Rigby
For most of Eleanor Rigby, Paul only uses two chords: E minor (chord I) and C major (chord bVI). The contrast of a dark minor chord with one of the brightest major chords gives the song an unsettled tone. Harmonic change is very slow, as the chords only change every two bars or so in the verses.
In bar 56, we see our only chord that isn’t E minor or C major. Paul throws in an A minor chord in place of a C major chord. This serves to highlight the particular tragedy of the previous line – “died in a church and was buried along with her name”.
The strings emphasise the harmony through playing block chords – for example, in bar 9. These thicken the harmony further.
Moreover, the backing vocals often sing in 3rds, for example in bar 1. The Beatles often used 3rds in their early songs, and vocal harmonies were a core aspect of their sound.
In the refrain, the viola (yes, fellow classical musicians, the viola!) plays a beautiful descending chromatic line. This adds some harmonic colour to the refrain and establishes a mournful, despondent mood.
If you have a harmony question and are stuck, listen out for the cello bass line. For example, you could comment on how it outlines the tonic triad in bar 3.
Texture of Eleanor Rigby
The overall texture of Eleanor Rigby is melody-dominated homophony. However, Paul switches up the texture every so often to keep the listener interested.
In the refrain, the texture thins right out to create some contrast.
The outro is almost polyphonic, as there are two vocal melodies and a viola melody going on at the same time. This perhaps reflects the interweaving storylines of Eleanor Rigby and Father McKenzie.
Here are some other interesting textural moments in the song:
- There is dialogue between the backing vocals and first violin in bars 1-4 – they interact but do not play the same notes
- Violin I uses imitation in bar 26 as if to emphasise that lonely people belong nowhere (what a depressing thought…)
- The cello doubles the voice in bars 59-60, creating a different and new texture to maintain the listener’s interest in the final verse
- Paul uses a homorhythmic texture for the last notes of the song, which means that the instruments are playing different notes to the same rhythm. This therefore creates a sense of finality, both of the song and of the life of its eponymous (namesake) character
Melody of Eleanor Rigby
The melodies of Eleanor Rigby are mostly syllabic, as is typical of popular music. This places the focus on the lyrics rather than the singer’s vocal prowess.
Melodies also tend to be conjunct, making them easily singable and memorable. However, leaps of a 3rd are quite common (see “Rigby”, bar 9). There are also a few really wide leaps. The best example of this can be found in bar 24, where Paul sings a compound minor 3rd.
Paul’s lead vocal has a range of a compound minor 3rd, from a low E to a G. This is quite a wide range for a popular song.
Our verse melody begins on the 4th degree of the scale and doesn’t resolve nicely, making it an appoggiatura. This is an unusual beginning as it creates some mild dissonance.
The second two bars of the verse (i.e. bars 10 and 11) form a descending sequence. This perhaps reflects the repetetive, mundane nature of Eleanor Rigby’s life.
Although the melody is mostly in the voice, there are some moments of melodic interest for the other instruments. For example:
- The viola has a short, chromatically descending melody in the refrain
- In bars 30 and 35, the cello plays an ascending scale, giving it some melodic interest
- Just a few bars later (bars 33 and 34), the viola has a two-bar syncopated passage
In the outro there is a mixture of the introduction and refrain melodies, perhaps reflecting the final, too-late meeting of Eleanor Rigby and Father McKenzie.
Rhythm, metre and tempo of Eleanor Rigby
Eleanor Rigby does not have a tempo marking, as is common for popular songs. It does, however, have a metronome marking of 136 BPM, which is quite fast.
The song is in 4/4, or simple quadruple time, which is the most common metre for popular songs.
Rather interestingly, the cello part begins with a quaver rest. This immediately establishes an unsettled tone, as there is no clear bass line at the very beginning.
The vocal melody uses lots of tied notes. We can easily see this at the beginning of the refrain – e.g. bar 19. There are lots of possible justifications for this, but I think the most interesting is that it emphasises the words “lonely” and “people”, which together summarise the entire song in two words!
Eleanor Rigby is built on lots of repeated crotchets in the strings. This helps ground the pulse, and also creates a sense of inevitability. Moreover, Paul uses lots of syncopation to maintain the listener’s interest throughout the song, as well as to contrast with the driving crotchets. A good example of this can be found in the backing vocals in bar 2, or alternatively in the violins in bars 14-18.
The driving crotchets of the verses are contrasted with sustained semibreves in the lower strings for the refrain. This creates an ominous feeling.
Coda
And there we have it! A rather detailed analysis of everything you need to know for A level music Eleanor Rigby analysis, from instrumentation and melody to rhythms and context.
This article was all about the Ultimate Guide to A Level Music Eleanor Rigby.
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