She’s Leaving Home

Description

Learn to play – She’s Leaving Home

Written by: Lennon-McCartney
Recorded: 17, 20 March 1967
Producer: George Martin
Engineer: Geoff Emerick

Released: 1 June 1967 (UK), 2 June 1967 (US)

Paul McCartney: lead vocals, backing vocals
John Lennon: vocals, backing vocals
Erich Gruenberg, Derek Jacobs, Trevor Williams, José Luis Garcia: violin
John Underwood, Stephen Shingles: viola
Dennis Vigay, Alan Dalziel: cello
Gordon Pearce: double bass
Sheila Bromberg: harp

Available on:
Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

Inspired by a story in the Daily Mail about a teenage runaway, She’s Leaving Home was described by George Martin as “not, strictly speaking, a Beatles song at all,” and “pure McCartney, from start to finish”.

In February 1967 McCartney read about Melanie Coe, a 17-year-old A-level schoolgirl from Stamford Hill, north London. She went missing without her car, cheque book and spare clothes. Her father was quoted as saying, “I cannot imagine why she should run away. She has everything here.”

Coe briefly rented a flat in Paddington with a croupier she had met in a nightclub, and returned home around 10 days after the newspaper report was published.

McCartney wrote the music and the initial lyrics, which were later completed with John Lennon.

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 can buy,’ which was true in my case. I had two diamond rings, a mink coat, handmade 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 never communicated with either of my parents. It was a constant battle…

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 can remember thinking that I didn’t run off with a man from the motor trade, so it couldn’t have been 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
A Hard Day’s Write, Steve Turner