Eleanor Rigby: When Ray Charles transformed The Beatles' classic into a biblical soul ballad
5 June 2025, 12:09
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It's a haunting song about devastation of loneliness.
But 'Eleanor Rigby', as crushing as it might be, still remains as one The Beatles' greatest songwriting achievements.
Featuring on the band's landmark 1966 album Revolver, their sound was evolving, and 'Eleanor Rigby' indicated that they were artistically maturing.
Whilst they were clearly still capable of writing rock 'n' roll adjacent pop bops or beautiful pop ballads, John Lennon, George Harrison, Ringo Starr, and in this case Paul McCartney, were setting their sights higher.
Replete with lush orchestration, the chorus of "All the lonely people / Where do they all come from?" pulls on the heartstrings as much as it does the string instruments.
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Marking a departure from the music they made as teenagers, producer George Martin kept pace with the Fab Four's desire to experiment, 'Eleanor Rigby' being a prime example.
It's the only song The Beatles recorded where none of them play an instrument on the recording. But it's brimming with soul, morose as the song may be.
That's exactly what soul legend Ray Charles channelled when he covered 'Eleanor Rigby' in 1968, transforming it into a pained yet biblical ballad.
The song details the lives of two characters - the first verse the titular Eleanor Rigby, and in the second verse Father MacKenzie.
At first we meet Rigby, an old lonely lady who "picks up the rice in a church where a wedding has been", regretting the dreams of marriage, family life, and companionship that slipped through her fingers.
Likewise, Father Mackenzie is a man who has dedicated his life to the church, yet "no one will hear" his sermons as he fails to connect to people, either on a spiritual or social level.
In the third verse of the song, Eleanor Rigby dies as a lonely soul and Father Mackenzie buries her. It's bleak.
Though, it's this desperation and isolation that Charles tapped into during his performance of the song on The Ed Sullivan Show – ironically the hit US television show that kickstarted Beatlemania several years earlier.
The musical arrangement for Charles' performance was imaginative, and almost entirely different from the original.
Employing a bossa nova rhythm and punchy brass instruments, he places himself within the story, acting as a narrator from within the song's lyrics like it's his own memories he's recalling.
Backed by his celestial group of singers The Raelettes, the orchestration from the original is replaced with their voices, lifting the song to heavenly heights.
It's almost as if the maestro Brother Ray is delivering the sermon at Eleanor Rigby's funeral himself.
No wonder why many believe it to be the finest reimagining of The Beatles' haunting classic, even though the likes of Aretha Franklin, Joan Baez and Tony Bennett all covered it over the years.
Ray Charles "Eleanor Rigby" (The Beatles Cover) on The Ed Sullivan Show
Ray Charles' interpretation of The Beatles' song might have been him paying tribute to the band and their immaculate songwriting.
But the American soul legend pre-dated the Fab Four, and proved to be a major inspiration on them.
During their early days galavanting around Hamburg, The Beatles would frequently perform 'What I'd Say' at their shows.
A popular song with clubbers and American GI's that would dock in the city, the danceable beat made it a staple of their sets for a time, with Ringo later pinching the rhythm for the song 'I Feel Fine'.
The Beatles - I Feel Fine
"The song itself was more John’s than mine,” Paul McCartney later revealed in the book Many Years From Now.
“We sat down and co-wrote it with John’s original idea. John sang it, I’m on harmonies and the drumming is basically what we used to think of as ‘What’d I Say’ drumming."
"There was a style of drumming on ‘What’d I Say’ which is a sort of Latin R&B that Ray Charles’s drummer Milt Turner played on the original record and we used to love it," Paul continued.
"One of the big clinching factors about Ringo as the drummer in the band was that he could really play that so well.”
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The Beatles - Something
Ray Charles' timeless music also proved to be a major influence on another one of The Beatles' classic songs: 'Something'.
Though George Harrison might've nicked the words from James Taylor's 'Something In The Way She Moves' for the song's opening line, he imagined Ray Charles singing it when he wrote the lyrics.
“Actually, when I was writing that song, in my mind I was thinking of Ray Charles singing it,” Harrison recalled.
Charles later covered 'Something' himself, though Harrison admitted he wasn't particularly impressed.
“As it happened, the song ended up with over 150 cover versions, but when Ray Charles did it, I was really disappointed, except for the middle, the bridge to it, he sings great. But it was a bit of a corny sort of way he did it.”
