3 weeks Ago By Matt Jackson
John Lennon was said to be left “insulted” by a request from Sir Paul McCartney as the pair wrote one of The Beatles biggest hits. Paul is said to have penned the first verse to the incredibly popular Eleanor Rigby before putting it on the back burner. However, at a dinner party hosted by John and his then wife Cynthia, Paul is understood to have played the song for friends of the band, and asked for suggestions on how to finish it.
According to the book John and Paul: A Love Story in Songs, businessman Pete Shotton, a friend of John , suggested that the Eleanor character could die in the third verse, leaving Father Mackenzie, the priest in the lyrics, to conduct her funeral. He claims John dismissed the idea out of hand, saying: “I don’t think you understand what we’re trying to get at, Pete.” According to author Ian Leslie, John gave a similar, albeit slightly different account to how Eleanor Rigby was written, including a moment he was left feeling “insulted” by fellow songwriter Paul.
He claimed the band were with assistant Mal Evans and Neil Aspinall at the time. In a 1980 retelling of the incident, he said: “By that time, he [Paul] didn’t want to ask for my help, and we were sitting around with Mal Evans and Neil Aspinall so he said to us, ‘Hey you guys, finish up the lyrics’. Now, I was there with Mal, a telephone installer who was our road manager, and Neil, who was a student accountant, and I was insulted and hurt he had thrown it out in the air.
” John claimed Paul “wanted him” to finish the song, leaving the pair to head off into a room to finish writing the lyrics. He added there “wasn’t a line” included from anyone else present. Paul however, who remained quiet at the time, is said to have used Pete’s idea in the song, later crediting the businessman for his help.
The amount of input the legendary Beatles frontman put into the lyrics of Eleanor Rigby has remained a source of debate over the years. John, who was shot dead in New York in 1980, originally claimed the first verse was written by Paul and “the rest are basically mine”, reports author Ian. Although Pete Shotton described his contribution as “virtually nil”.
Paul meanwhile says his songwriting partner contributed 20 percent of the work. In his book, Ian explains: “Lennon’s urge to exaggerate is understandable. As soon as the world heard Eleanor Rigby, it was held as a masterpiece, specifically for the poetic quality of its lyrics.
“But John was meant to be the ‘literary Beatle’. So whenever John was at his most insecure - in the wake-up of the break-up, and in 1980 when he stepped back into the limelight after several years out of it - it became more important to lay claim to Eleanor Rigby.” Eleanor Rigby, along with In My Life, are said to be the two Beatles songs where the band disagrees over who contributed the most.
John called In My Life his "first real major piece of work". John is reported to have said Paul wrote "the harmony and the middle-eight." While the bassist says he wrote the music in its entirety.
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