One of Paul McCartney's most legendary "character songs", Eleanor Rigby appeared on the 5th of August 1966 on the album Revolver and as the B-side to Yellow Submarine.
Surprisingly for a song of such subsequent reknown it was never performed live by the Beatles.
Although the grave of an Eleanor Rigby was found in Liverpool some years after the songs release (and, spookily, Eleanor died a year and a day before John Lennon was born on October 9th 1940) this was no more than a bizarre coincidence (but a pretty good one for those Beatles Tour promoters in Liverpool).
The name came from one of The Beatles' co-stars in their second feature film "Help!", an actress called Eleanor Bron (that's her on the right).
The Rigby came from a shop sign he'd seen in Bristol, the name of some wine and spirits importers. McCartney had originally christened his song's protagonist Daisy Hawkins!
The song had the usual Lennon and McCartney songwriting credit, but opinions vary as to who composed what and to what degree. Lennon once went on the record to say that he was responsible for 70% of the lyrics to Eleanor Rigby, but according to website Who Wrote That the song is more Paul's "baby" than John's.
Here's the video from the Yellow Submarine movie.
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