Tag: She's Leaving Home

Beatles Week – Beatles Cake @tao-talk.com

Welcome to Beatles Week and we will kick it off in style with this article covering all of the Beatles. So buckle up… We will have over a week with The Beatles. I probably wouldn’t do this with another band…but hey…It’s The Beatles. 

This entry is by Lisa from Tao-Talk. I’ve known Lisa since 2018 and the biggest George Harrison fan I’ve ever met. She is a wonderful writer with a wide knowledge of music. Lisa is a mother, grandmother, gardener, retired government worker, observer, reader, writer, cinema lover, learner, bicyclist, woman who runs with the wolves, and last but not least, a lover of music! Go visit Lisa when you can!

To me, being asked to write about The Beatles is like being asked to write about the air or the sky or water.  They are like elements of nature, so immersing and vast it is difficult to grab on to a small enough aspect to be able to articulate it in words.

Ever since Max asked me to be a part of this series it’s been clear I want the topic to be balanced between all four of them because it is all four of them mixed together like essential ingredients in a prize-winning recipe that the magic happens.

Right now I’m thinking of a delicious cake and what ingredient each of the guys would be.  Paul would for sure be the sugar.  Who else looks as dreamy as he does.  As a young girl his puppy dog eyes and chubby cheeks and innocent smile won me over.  It is his soulful melodies with Cupid’s lyrics that continue to win me over.  “She’s Leaving Home” plucks my heart strings every time.

The flour for the cake would be Ringo.  There cannot be cake without flour.  It is the foundation.  Ringo’s steady drumming gave the other three the freedom to create whatever they wanted.  They knew Ringo would have their back with the beats, and he stepped in with grace when it was time to sing, acting naturally.

John would be the salt in the cake.  His salty comments to the media come to mind.  His bold publicity stunts to call attention to important matters come to mind.  The depth of his feelings shines through in his leavening lyrics.  For example, “In My Life.”  When I think of John I think of The Bible verse Matthew 5:13:  You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its savor, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.  I think if any of the other three weren’t there, The Beatles would still have existed and they would have been good, but without John there would not have been the essential savor. Without John there would have been no Beatles.

Most everyone knows that George is my favorite Beatle, so you may be wondering by now what part of the cake he is.  Easy answer would be the cherry on top, but I’m not going for the easy answer.  George would be the spice in the cake, as you see, this is a spice cake.  I think of India when I think spices, and George brought an Indian influence to the group.  Also spices are subtle, and with George’s contribution, the flavor of his music and lyrics are both subtle and lasting.  One of the last ones he wrote for Patti has got to haunt her just a little.

When you mix their ingredients together with other carefully selected musicians, instruments, and producers in the right proportions and cook for just the right amount of time, you come out with the perfect cake. Add a secret ingredient for the icing and you’ve got a cake whose taste stays fresh in your memory forever.

Just like there is no view without a viewer, there is no taste without the Apple Scruffs.  Each fan of The Beatles and Their Music effectively immortalizes them and it.  I’m happy to be part of that group of individuals.  I also hope that once we’re in the afterlife, the party continues with John, Paul, George, and Ringo.

Thank you, Max, for asking me to be a part of this writing challenge.  Can’t wait to hear what others will write.

This essay first appeared on Max’ blog, PowerPop… An Eclectic Collection of Pop Culture .

…

Advertisement

Beatles – She’s Leaving Home

I got this album when I was 10 years old and they even included the cutouts 10 years after it was released.

This song was on the Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band album. The album was probably the most influential rock album ever released. Other bands followed with psychedelic albums with varying results. The Zombie’s Odessey and Oracle was a great one but the Stones’ Their Satanic Majesties Request disappointed many fans. Sgt Pepper worked well but The Beatles would completely move on after their next EP – Album Magical Mystery Tour.

Not only were the songs different but the sound was different than their last albums. The two that stood out were Ringo’s drums and his use of toms on songs like A Day In The Life. Paul’s bass playing was brilliant. His bass on the album and especially Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds stands up to anything today…the sound of the bass also was crystal clear.

She’s Leaving Home took me a while to appreciate but when I got older I was blown away. This song was inspired by a real runaway named Melonie Coe. She had been on the television show, Ready, Steady Go, and won a prize for a miming and dancing contest. The Beatles were performing on the program and it was Paul who presented her with her prize.

Fast forward a couple of years and Melanie ran away from home in the afternoon leaving a note for her mother to find when she returned.  Melanie was running away with her boyfriend because she was in the early stages of pregnancy. She ended up breaking up with the guy.

The story of her disappearance was reported in the British newspaper, The Daily Mirror, and when Paul McCartney read it, he began to write the song She’s Leaving Home. The headline read: A-Level Girl Dumps Car and Vanishes.

It’s doubtful if Paul remembered Melanie from their brief encounter.

In the article, her father said “I cannot imagine why she should run away, she has everything here … even her fur coat.” And Lennon and McCartney turned that into “We gave her everything money could buy.”
Melanie moved to Los Angeles, having decided to become an actress. She didn’t make it and her only claim to fame was that she dated Burt Ward…a.k.a Robin in the television series Batman. She moved back to England and then on to Southern Spain where she became a real estate agent.

Melanie Coe 3

Paul was excited about this song and rang George Martin up to do it NOW. George couldn’t record when Paul wanted to so Paul recruited  Mike Leander…another producer. That didn’t sit well with Martin and he was hurt but there wasn’t much he could do.

George Martin: “It was the song that got away, It was the song I wanted to do…It was just one of those silly things. He was so damned impatient and I was up to my eyes with other work and I just couldn’t cope. But Paul realizes now, though he was surprised that I was upset.”

Melanie Coe: “The amazing thing about the song was how much it got right about my life, It quoted the parents as saying ‘we gave her everything money could buy’ which was true in my case. I had two diamond rings, a mink coat, hand-made clothes in silk and cashmere and even my own car. Then there was the line ‘after living alone for so many years,’ which really struck home to me because I was an only child and I always felt alone…I heard the song when it came out and thought it was about someone like me but never dreamed it was actually about me…I must have been in my twenties when my mother said she’d seen Paul on television and he’d said that the song was based on a story in a newspaper. That’s when I started telling my friends it was about me.”

Melanie Coe: “I first heard the song when it came out and I didn’t realize it was about me, but I remember thinking it could have been about me….I found the song to be extremely sad. It obviously struck a chord somewhere. It wasn’t until later, when I was in my twenties, that my mother said, ‘You know, that song was about you!’ She had seen an interview with Paul [McCartney] on television and he said he’d based the song on this newspaper article. She put two and two together.”

Paul McCartney: “We’d seen a story in the newspaper about a young girl who had left home and not been found. There were a lot of those at the time, 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 and then…It was rather poignant. I like it as a song, and when I showed it to John, he added the Greek chorus, 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 songwriting 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.”

“Greek chorus” entails by adding: “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.”

John Lennon: “Paul had the basic theme for this song, but all those lines like ‘We sacrificed most of our life…we gave her everything money could buy,’ those were the things Mimi used to say to me. It was easy to write.”

She’s Leaving Home

Wednesday morning at five o’clock as the day begins
Silently closing her bedroom door
Leaving the note that she hoped would say more
She goes downstairs to the kitchen clutching her handkerchief
Quietly turning the backdoor key
Stepping outside she is free

She (We gave her most of our lives)
Is leaving (Sacrificed most of our lives)
Home (We gave her everything money could buy)
She’s leaving home after living alone
For so many years (Bye bye)

Father snores as his wife gets into her dressing gown
Picks up the letter that’s lying there
Standing alone at the top of the stairs
She breaks down and cries to her husband “Daddy our baby’s gone
Why would she treat us so thoughtlessly?
How could she do this to me?”

She (We never thought of ourselves)
Is leaving (Never a thought for ourselves)
Home (We struggled hard all our lives to get by)
She’s leaving home after living alone
For so many years (Bye bye)

Friday morning at nine o’clock she is far away
Waiting to keep the appointment she made
Meeting a man from the motor trade

She (What did we do that was wrong)
Is having (We didn’t know it was wrong)
Fun (Fun is the one thing that money can’t buy)
Something inside that was always denied
For so many years (Bye bye)

She’s leaving home
Bye bye

…