Why Was Eleanor Rigby Picking Up Rice?

The line from the opening stanza of "Eleanor Rigby" has long buzzed at me:

Eleanor Rigby picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been
Lives in a dream
Waits at the window, wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door
Who is it for?

For what reason was she picking up the rice? Was it edible? Was it for sentimental reasons? Was she the church warden keeping the place spiffy? Or was it not meant to be taken literally, in the same way no doubt that face in the jar isn't?

Whatever feedback you can provide would be much appreciated.

 

I think it's one of many lines in the song written to paint a picture/image of Eleanor's loneliness.

I get the impression that Eleanor is alone when picking up the pieces of rice.

 

I always took that line to indicate Eleanor's overarching loneliness and almost subservience--she has to clean up the mocking aftermaths of symbolic happiness.

 

She's a lonely person, living in a dream. She's living other people's happiness vicariously.

 

Well it's usually confetti thrown at weddings, but rice is a reasonable substitute and is sometimes used!

I guess she's wishing it was her wedding.

 

Rice is thrown at weddings as a symbol of fertility and prosperity.

 

Rice throwing at weddings is a centuries old tradition

 

"Rice is nice, when violins play" (the Lemon Pipers)

 

Maybe she was a bird lover. You should never throw rice because birds eat it, then it expands inside them and they die.

 

That's exactly her reason to pick up the rice.

 

This is nothing more than a popular myth.

 

Not true.


edit: Pinch, poke, you owe me a Coke

 

That's very true. And Paul of course cares about animals. But how well was the danger of uncooked rice to birds understood in the 1960s?

 

It can't be good for the birds, though. Bread isn't good for them either, but it's at least digestible.

 

Oh definitely don't go a substitute good seed for rice or bread! It may not be good for them, but it certainly doesn't make them explode!

 

On a similar theme, I've often wondered why they weigh pies somewhere over the rainbow. Any insight on that little nugget would be very welcome.

 

Probably a lonely spinster collecting a remnant of a ceremony she thinks she'll never have.

 

I always thought she was poor and hungry. Picking up the rice to take home and cook. The term "keeps her face in a jar" by the door. Face in a jar refers to a jar of makeup. I think.

 

Ewww! Eating rice off the ground?

 

You'd better ask Ringo, as I read somewhere it was his one lyrical contribution to the song...

 

Agreed-

she was attending a wedding.

 

Far less stressful for her than trying to Pick Up A Man.

Or perhaps an OCD complex.

 

I always took her to be cleaning up the mess other people made while celebrating.

 

Picture an old woman all alone in a church, cleaning up the leftover rice that was thrown at a happy couple after a wedding. Contrast the loneliness of the empty church with the joyousness of the wedding. Contrast the old woman all alone with the throngs of people that attended the wedding shortly before. It's a pretty bleak picture.

Also, when Paul sings "ER, wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door, who is it for?" insinuates that even though ER puts on makeup to greet the world it's a futile exercise, because there is no one else around to know or care that she does so.

 

It's a nice double-meaning. 'Face in a jar' coudl indeed refer to a jar of making up; women sometimes talk about 'putting on my face' when they put on make-up. On the other hand, it could refer to putting on her all-purpose public expression, the one she uses when interacting with the world - part of her outfit that's kept by the door, along with coat, hat, shoes, etc.