John Lennon reportedly felt “insulted” by a suggestion from bandmate Sir Paul McCartney during the creation of one of The Beatles’ greatest tracks. Paul is understood to have written the first verse of the incredibly popular Eleanor Rigby before putting the song on the back burner.
However, at a dinner party hosted by John and his ex-wife Cynthia, Paul is said to have played his version of the song for friends, asking for suggestions 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, reports the Mirror US.
This proposal was swiftly rejected by John, who remarked: “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.
John reminisced in 1980 about being put on the spot by Paul, who looked to their collective circle, including road manager Mal Evans and student accountant Neil Aspinall, for lyrical inspiration.
Unimpressed by the open-ended request, John 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 Lennon once claimed that Paul McCartney “wanted him” to help finish the song, leading them to seclude themselves to pen the lyrics. He insisted that “wasn’t a line” from anyone else was included.
However, Paul, who kept silent at the time, is believed to have incorporated Pete Shotton’s suggestion into Eleanor Rigby, later acknowledging the businessman for his assistance. The extent of Lennon’s involvement in the creation of the song’s lyrics has been a contentious issue for years.
Lennon, tragically murdered in New York in 1980, initially stated that McCartney wrote the first verse and “the rest are basically mine”, as reported by author Ian. Pete Shotton, however, downplayed his own role, describing it as “virtually nil”.
On the other hand, McCartney maintains that Lennon contributed about 20 percent to the song. In his book, Ian notes: “Lennon’s urge to exaggerate is understandable. As soon as the world heard Eleanor Rigby, it was acclaimed as a masterpiece, especially for the poetic nature 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.”
The authorship of Eleanor Rigby and In My Life remains disputed within The Beatles, with each member having their own take on who contributed what. Lennon regarded In My Life as 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.