The Beatles’ landmark 1967 album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band has been lauded more than just about any album in rock history. People talk about the concept, about the cover, about the way the album represented a new start for the Fab Four as a studio band who no longer played live. That’s all good stuff, for sure. But without the brilliance of individual songs like “She’s Leaving Home,” it’s impossible to imagine Pepper’s creating the impact that it did.
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“She’s Leaving Home” stands out as one of the loveliest and saddest songs on that or any other Beatles album, a piercing short story set against a beautiful, classical music-inspired backdrop. Because it wasn’t a hit single (there were no singles released from that record), many fans might not know the story behind it. How did Paul McCartney’s innocent perusal of the morning paper set the song in motion? What counterintuitive role did John Lennon play on the song? And why did it cause some hard feelings with George Martin, the band’s longtime producer? All the answers and more can be found below as we look back to this incredible musical accomplishment.
They Read the News That Day (Oh, Boy)
The so-called “concept” behind Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, that it would be a kind of concert put on by an imaginary band, really doesn’t go very far past the opening few songs and a brief revival at the end. But the album does cohere because of how the songs were mostly about somewhat mundane occurrences: the appearance of a traveling circus (“Being for the Benefit of Mr. Kite”); a guy taking a walk through his hometown (“Good Morning Good Morning”); a day so boring that idle tasks are needed to get through it (“Fixing a Hole”); and so on. All of these everyday events are then elevated to magical status by the ambitious, innovative music The Beatles created to accompany them.
“She’s Leaving Home” is a kitchen-sink melodrama about a teenage runaway. If it seems like a slice of life, it’s because it was inspired by an actual event that Paul McCartney read about one day in Great Britain’s Daily Mail newspaper. “This one is based somewhat on a newspaper report of a missing girl,” McCartney explains in his book The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present. “The headline was something like ‘A-Level Girl Dumps Car and Vanishes.’ So, I set out to imagine what might have happened, the sequence of events.”
The girl in question, a 17-year-old named Melanie Coe, actually returned home shortly after the article ran. When she later found out that “She’s Leaving Home” was about her, she couldn’t believe how accurately the song was able to get inside her head and heart.
By George
In addition to his production duties, George Martin also served as The Beatles’ unofficial arranger. Yet when it came time to put something together to capture the classical feel of Paul McCartney’s melody on “She’s Leaving Home,” Martin couldn’t make it on the short notice demanded by Paul because he was in the middle of producing another session.
Mike Leander was called upon as a replacement, and he came up with the harp-heavy score that distinguishes “She’s Leaving Home.” Martin admitted afterward that he was hurt by McCartney’s impatience, although he still did go on to produce the record.
What Is “She’s Leaving Home” About?
One of the most fascinating things about “She’s Leaving Home” is how McCartney constructed the song to impart to the listener why the girl was running away. If you’ll note, she herself never describes her feelings. In terms of her involvement in the song, she’s there in the first verse surreptitiously leaving the house, the handkerchief in her hands a hint that she’s upset. We see her again in the third verse, two days on the run and apparently on the cusp of a new relationship with a “man from the motor trade.”
What we know about the motivations behind the girl’s decisions comes from her parents, who appear in the second verse in shock at her departure, and also when responding in each chorus to McCartney’s cries of the title refrain. John Lennon helped McCartney write those portions and also plays the part of the parents. Imagine Lennon, then one of the chief figureheads of the counterculture, delivering the case against the youngster’s choices.
It’s also brilliant how Lennon and McCartney structure the parents’ reactions. In the first chorus, they’re brimming with indignation (We gave her everything money could buy). By the second verse, they’ve moved on to self-pity (We struggled hard all our lives to get by). By the third verse, they’ve realized the error of their ways, as Lennon sings with heartbroken resignation (What did we do that was wrong? / We didn’t know it was wrong / Fun is the one thing that money can’t buy), while McCartney changes the refrain to, She’s having fun. The parents’ overbearing, overprotective behavior stifled their child to the point where she thought that the only recourse was escape.
“She’s Leaving Home” certainly pleads the case for youthful freedom. But it also humanizes the parents at a time when giving the older generation a break wasn’t a fashionable thing to do among rock musicians. Most of us read the morning paper and don’t get anything out of it but a few tidbits of information. The Beatles read it and came away with a masterpiece.
Photo by David Redfern/Redferns
