Why Was Eleanor Rigby Picking Up Rice?

No, Ringo's contribution was Father McKenzie 'darning his socks'.

 

Didn't bother to read page one, eh?

 

Wow I am amazed how many interpretations there are of some what appear to me to be simple lyrics.

Rice was used at weddings before the days of paper confetti and still is in the UK.

The face in the jar is, i would say, the jar where she keeps her make up as it was often said in the UK, and still is, that when you put your make up on that you are putting your face on.

Unless rice is a drug reference (hence the dream) and the face in the jar is referring to Paul looking at the world from the otherside (after all Paul is dead)...

;-)

Richard

 

Rice has had a resurgence in Australia as confetti is now considered litter.

 

Paul was a master lyricist - in 1966.

Too bad he couldn't keep it up after that.

 

I dunno, 'Simply Having A Wonderful Christmas Time' says what it needs to say

 

Paul never lost his touch.

 

Alone and poor.

 

Why 'poor'? What is there in the lyric that suggests she's poor?

 

Except a woman at that time kept her make-up on her dressing table, not by the door. And as I mentioned earlier, this is the face she wears at the window, not the one she wears outside. In my own imagination, Eleanor has a nondescript, blank expression during the day, but in the evening plays out the role of the wife she would like to have been. (Think of 'Miss Lonelyhearts' from Rear Window.)

I'm pretty confident that the jar with the face in it is therefore a surreal image. We are supposed to be piqued by the fact that while most people wear a metaphorical mask when they go out, she has a metaphorical mask that she wears when she is alone.

 

Guess I didn't. Shall I walk to the grave yard?

 

Wipe the dirt from your hands as you do so

 

Where's that priest?

 

Your forgot the emoticon that indicates sarcasm.

 

She was picking up Rice because she was a masochist who liked to get beat up by professional athletes.

 

Nobody came to her funeral because she left no inheritance.

 

It doesn't imply that, it specifically says "buried along with her name", meaning she had no living relatives. I understand the modern obsession with wealth and inheritance but that's not what the song is about. There is a clue in the repeated refrain "All the lonely people", the song is about lonely people, not poor people. Only Father MacKenzie's mended socks hint at poverty but there is nothing explicit.

 

I typed it in Comic Sans.

 

I was half-joking with my post, but the seriousness of your response has inspired me...

SIGNS THAT ELEANOR RIGBY IS POOR:
1. aforementioned lack of inheritance.
2. she picks up used rice because she's too poor to buy fresh rice.
3. she lives in a dream because she can't afford material things.
4. she waits at the window because she doesn't have a job.
5. she wears a face that she keeps in a jar because she can't afford fancy makeup.
6. she died in the church because she was too poor to go the hospital.
7. she wasn't saved because secretly she was an atheist and she only went to the church to steal rice and take advantage of the free social services. (sock mending?)

 

Oh I stand corrected, It seems I don't understand the modern obsession with wealth.

 

"Hello Goodbye" was a real turning point. Perhaps "Rigby" was a lyrical peak for him, but "Fool on the Hill," "Penny Lane," "She's Leaving Home" all have really ambitious, good lyrics. Then, of nowhere, you get "You say goodbye / I say hello / hey la hey la." That was the real beginning of the "that'll do" lyric sensibility for which his solo career gets so much grief.

 

Society's obsession with wealth is not modern. It was actually created by The Beatles in 1964 when they inspired thousands of young boys to become wealthy rock stars.

 

I know you're kidding with these, but that one doesn't fly even as a joke. Thanks to the National Health Service the only way she would be too poor to go to hospital is if she couldn't afford the bus fare.

 

Maybe it implies she was asian?

 

It could be her job. Maybe she has nothing to do with the church - she walked in, saw it and took a moment to reflect. Paul's lyrics put me in mind of Scott Walker's, now that I think of it - the song SUCH A SMALL LOVE in particular. Paul simply reports and doesn't judge either character.