Comments on: She’s Leaving Home

By: Magill, Li'l, Nancy

Magill, Li'l, Nancy — Wed, 20 Mar 2019 00:38:47 +0000

Pulled straight from a book titled “100 Best Beatles Songs: An Informed Fan’s Guide” by Stephen J. Spignes and Michael Lewis : The original mono version is in the key of F-major. For the 1967 stereo release of Sgt.Pepper the song was slowed down just enough to drop it down half a step to E major. 🙂

By: Bernie

Bernie — Fri, 22 Feb 2019 01:39:19 +0000

This is certainly a beautiful song, it was Paul’s idea and the whole feel of it is Paul but the little lines that Lennon wrote are quite mesmerizing it gives Paul’s song depth, so many Beatles songs have that and I believe this is the Beatles secret. Some of John’s songs have that as well, that’s why they were so unique as a band.

By: Kristy

Kristy — Sun, 15 Jul 2018 04:39:34 +0000

Just my opinion, but I read it on a deeper level. When you’re unhappy, you can easily become depressed. Depression can be like a zombie walk through life that has become existence. You can be with someone at a “fun” event, but feel pain or nothing at all instead of fun. You need to feel from the inside what the outside is presenting to you. You can be at a great party or an amusement park, and feel absolutely lonely and miserable. I imagine the girl in the song is isolated with her parents. She probably couldn’t relate well to kids her own age. She was sheltered and, when her parents saw her withdrawing, maybe they took her to events that were supposed to be “fun” and would have been if only she had company who could unlock the joy inside her. I see a forlorn soul, going through the motions of the rides all alone, with her sad parents standing near trees, looking on and not knowing what to do or how to help her in any way. All three are joyless, and it’s sad because so many people in life feel that way.

By: Davidmackin w

Davidmackin w — Sat, 25 Nov 2017 20:50:19 +0000

Lennon wrote a lot of this song remembering words aunt Mamie had told him.

We struggled hard all our lives to get by

Never a thought for ourselves

All those lines are Lennon referring sacrifice

By: Ms. Lane

Ms. Lane — Sat, 05 Aug 2017 22:31:44 +0000

The young Miss Coe bears quite a resemblance to Pattie Boyd.

By: Grant Porter

Grant Porter — Fri, 02 Jun 2017 22:47:01 +0000

Very nice to hear the 2017 deluxe version without the vocals, similar to the remix of Eleanor Rigby. Those two songs together elevated the Beatles to a level rarely reached by pop artists by gaining undeniable legitimacy among even the greatest snobs found in classical music circles. An absolutely beautiful sad song. It is interesting to imagine what the arrangement might have been like had George Martin handled the piece.

By: Taylor Carman

Taylor Carman — Sat, 27 May 2017 19:15:51 +0000

No no no, this is typical Lennonesque irony: he’s puncturing the sentimentality by tossing in something obviously, comically false. But it also intensifies the sadness: fun isn’t really fulfilling if it’s just bought.

By: Taylor Carman

Taylor Carman — Sat, 27 May 2017 19:13:17 +0000

By: Joe

Joe — Thu, 06 Apr 2017 07:07:39 +0000

I was staggered by the beauty of this song the first time I heard it. Pure poetry.

By: J Neo Marvin

J Neo Marvin — Tue, 13 Dec 2016 20:33:30 +0000

Excellent observation about a line that always bothered me too.

By: Steve

Steve — Thu, 03 Nov 2016 18:13:23 +0000

The arrangement is a thing of beauty. This is one of my favorite Beatles songs. The mood, the lyrics, Paul and John’s vocals, and the musical resolution at the end with the harp. Was surprised to find Martin didn’t do the arrangement. It certainly doesn’t suffer from it.

By: Dino

Dino — Sat, 01 Aug 2015 11:46:43 +0000

Maybe “fun” in the song is intended as “happiness”..

By: Kendall

Kendall — Sat, 03 Jan 2015 18:19:46 +0000

Actually, that is incorrect. Here’s Paul quoted as stating that John contributed the chorus with the “long sustained notes” (“sheeeee….is leaving…..”), including the sustained notes of the songs ending, and the answering melody lines (“we struggled hard all our lives to get by” etc.) while all of the verses were written by Paul. “It was John’s idea for the words of the old couple, ‘What did we do that was wrong?’ in the background,” explained George Martin. “He was looking at the misused old people and also the conflict between them and the young girl. Originally, it was undoubtedly Paul’s song, but John contributed quite a bit in a way with the answering chorus.” Paul confirms this by saying, “It was largely mine, with help from John.”

By: Don

Don — Fri, 15 Aug 2014 20:55:29 +0000

I had exactly the same reaction the first time I heard this song. In my case, I thought immediately of being taken to an amusement park and having lots of fun—paid for by my parents! $ = fun, right?

But when I heard John sing, “Fun is the one thing that money can’t buy,” I asked myself whether it really was the money that made me enjoy myself. Obviously the money was necessary: you couldn’t ride the rides without tickets, and tickets cost money. But I realized that the money was not sufficient: I later went to the same amusement park, rode the same rides, and had no fun at all. Why? My parents had recently gotten divorced.

$ can buy you enjoyable things, but actually enjoying them isn’t something that $ alone can provide.

By: Katrina Music (@KatrinaKSmusic)

Katrina Music (@KatrinaKSmusic) — Wed, 30 Jul 2014 03:17:57 +0000

I noticed that too between the vinyl and digital versions…I thought something was wrong with my new record player when I first heard it on vinyl lol

By: Bill

Bill — Thu, 01 May 2014 03:43:53 +0000

But just the lyrics, right? By contrast, I noticed in the “Getting Better” article that Paul credited John with writing a “counter-melody” in that one. Not so in this one, I suppose?

By: Frank

Frank — Wed, 30 Apr 2014 18:16:37 +0000

I can’t believe 40-50 years later so many are still pitting John and Paul against each other. Competition would be natural for the two greatest songwriters of any generation. It never ceases to amaze me that so many people feel the need to fight Johns battles, they both did a pretty good job on their own and still loved each other to the end. It’s The Beatles and everything they did was great. In the seven years together the four of them accomplished more than 20 bands combined couldn’t dream of doing in a lifetime. Enjoy the music and hit next on your ipod, cd player if you don’t like a song or feel the need to critique every aspect of a song because millions and millions didn’t seem to have a problem. I can only imagine what Beethoven had to put up with.

By: Julian

Julian — Tue, 29 Apr 2014 22:35:42 +0000

Yeah, basically what John sings is what he contributed: the perspective of the runaway girl’s parents.

By: Bill

Bill — Tue, 29 Apr 2014 01:48:45 +0000

This is one of a number of songs from this album written by Paul that nonetheless feature a prominent John vocal section (I’m thinkig of “Sgt. Pepper” the opening track and “Getting Better”). At one time I thought these sections were written by John. Ian MacDonald in “Revolution in the Head” refers to the middle of this song (which he described as the “sour” middle I seem to remember) of this songs as being contributed by John. But I guess his contribution was limited to a few of the lyrics of the song?

By: embrasure

embrasure — Thu, 10 Apr 2014 19:18:28 +0000

George Martin was biased towards Paul – John and George knew that and never worked with him again after the split – and spoke a lot of crap half the time like saying in one doco I saw recently Paul was mainly interested in the music while John in the words which is blatantly untrue. He wouldn’t have known who wrote what precisely and wasn’t even involved in the recording of “She’s Leaving Home” was he?
It’s great that Paul gave credit to John for co-writing the song.When I hear it – like today hence this post- I now think of it as a McCartney-Lennon song with John as co-lead singer. I like Paul more when he shows his generous side instead of trying to claim everything.
Mind you Lennon gave George Martin a serve on a few occasions. He told him he didn’t want any of his “production crap” on the Get Back album and GM said he was vicious to him and everybody in the RS interview 1970. So there were some issues there.