Mojo - The Music Magazine

11. Eleanor Rigby
(Revolver, 1966)

All the lonely people, enfranchised in hard-boiled mode: "no one was saved."

David Crosby: “Eleanor Rigby appeals to me for a bunch of different reasons. One, who do you know that’s written a song like that, who noticed the loneliness of old people, of people seemingly unnoticed by the rest of us? These people were invisible to songwriters, too, but they weren’t invisible to Paul. You can tell that he really watches people, that he acknowledges their sad determination.

“The imagery is just stunning: ‘darning her socks in the night’, ‘writing a sermon that no one will hear’. I love it that McCartney sees people with that kind of love. That song has absolutely stood the test of time for me. It’s like a beautiful painting you can see a thousand times and still be seein’ new stuff in it.”