Songs › The Beatles › Eleanor Rigby
The Beatles
Eleanor Rigby
The Lennon pole of Phase I. McCartney wrote it.
Hollow marks: the other 49 scored songs · Hatched band: the Crossover Zone
The case
The strongest honest argument for each side, then the ruling.
The Garcia argument
The eight string players were people in a room, and the bite of their playing is part of the sound. A score can also be handed to any competent octet. The piece does not depend on one piece of tape the way Strawberry Fields Forever does.
The Lennon argument
No Beatle plays an instrument. George Martin scored every note for four violins, two violas and two cellos, and the players read it. The vocal melody, the lyric and the form are fixed. The Beatles never performed it live. Nothing on the record was decided while it was being played.
The verdict: GLI 97
The Lennon pole of Phase I, and McCartney wrote it. The whole content of the work existed on paper before the session began. The three points it gives up come from the Garcia argument: because it is fully notated, it is slightly less bound to its own recording than the tape-built pieces are.
What is fixed
- Every note of the string parts
- Vocal melody and harmonies
- Lyric
- Form and length
What is open
- The players' touch
Evidence dimensions
Each runs from 0, Garcia, to 100, Lennon. Their weighted composite is 97. The published GLI is 97, the same.
Two minutes and eight seconds, every bar accounted for.
A score read by eight players. A second performance would differ by a hair.
The whole content existed on paper before the session began.
Composed and scored. Nothing was decided while it was being played.
Slightly below the tape-built pieces, because a score can be handed to another octet.
Transformational tolerance
It survives another octet reading the same parts. It does not survive much else.
Confidence: 92%
Fully documented. A notated score removes most of the doubt.
Keep arguing
Every placement is relative. These are the songs this one was measured against.
Cross-band twin
Closest song from the other band
Attics of My LifeGLI 88The most Lennon song the Dead played, and a choir could sing it.Compare the twoEditorial counterpart
Chosen because it argues back
RippleGLI 81Both were fully written before the session. Only one of them needs its record.
Compare the twoThe record
Catalog facts
- Catalog no.
- GLI·TB·008
- Artist
- The Beatles
- Writers
- Lennon–McCartney
- Release
- Revolver (1966)
- Released
- 5 August 1966
- Duration
- 2:08
Sources
Classified 5 October 2026