She's Leaving Home

Song infobox
Name = She's Leaving Home
Artist = The Beatles
Album = Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Released = 1 June 1967
track_no = 6
Recorded = Abbey Road Studios
17 March 1967
Genre = Baroque pop, ballad
Length = 3:35
Writer = Lennon/McCartney
Label = Parlophone
Producer = George Martin
Misc = Extra tracklisting
Album = Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
Type = studio
Tracks = Side one
# "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"
# "With a Little Help from My Friends"
# "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds"
# "Getting Better"
# "Fixing a Hole"
# "She's Leaving Home"
# "Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite!"Side two
# "Within You Without You"
# "When I'm Sixty-Four"
# "Lovely Rita"
# "Good Morning Good Morning"
# "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (Reprise)"
# "A Day in the Life"

"She's Leaving Home" is a song, written and by Paul McCartney and John Lennon, 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. This was one of a handful of songs of the Beatles in which the members did not play any instruments. Others include Eleanor Rigby, Good Night and The Inner Light.

Background

Paul McCartney:cquote|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. [Barry Miles, "Many Years From Now", p. 316]

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 [Steve Turner, "A Hard Days Write"] 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.Fact|date=February 2007 [Steve Turner, "A Hard Day's Write", o. 127]

Coincidentally, Coe had met McCartney three years earlier when she was a contestant and prize winner on ITV's "Ready Steady Go!". [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IgQ1qNPciic] An update on Melanie appeared in the Daily Mail in May 2008. [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-567024/Shes-leaving-home---The-woman-inspired-Beatles-classic-quit-Spanish-house-built-illegally.html] .

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. [George Martin with Jeremy Horsnby, "All You Need Is Ears", p. 207-208] [Mark Lewisohn, "The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions", p. 103]

Credits

*Paul McCartney: double-tracked lead vocals.
*John Lennon: double-tracked background vocals.
*Mike Leander: strings arrangement.
*George Martin: conductor and producer.

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 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 and Cara Tivey'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 1995, McCoy Tyner covered this song on the CD I Got No Kick Against Modern Jazz.
*In 2004, Branimir Krstic, classical guitarist and composer [http://www.branimir.net] , 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, Les Fradkin released an instrumental version on his CD- "Pepper Front To Back".
*In 2007, The 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 "" premiers at the Royal Festival Hall in London, England.

Notes