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How the Beatles’ Eleanor Rigby was inspired by a Bristol business
Between December 1965 and January 1966, Jane Asher played a St Trinian’s schoolgirl in a production of The Happiest Days of Your Life at Bristol Old Vic.
Her boyfriend at the time used to wait for her outside the theatre, one time paying particular attention to the name of a business on King Street.
The business was Rigby & Evens, a wine and spirit shippers. The boyfriend was Paul McCartney, and the name inspired Eleanor Rigby, which was released as a double A-side single with Yellow Submarine in August 1966.
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“My memory has me visiting Bristol, where Jane Asher was playing at the Old Vic,” writes McCartney in his book, The Lyrics.
“I was wandering around, waiting for the play to finish, and saw a shop sign that read ‘Rigby’, and I thought, That’s it! It really was as happenstance as that.
“When I got back to London, I wrote the song in Mrs Asher’s music room in the basement of 57 Wimpole Street, where I was living at the time…
“The song itself was consciously written to evoke the subject of loneliness, with the hope that we could get listeners to empathize.
“Those opening lines – ‘Eleanor Rigby / Picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been / Lives in a dream’.
“It’s a little strange to be picking up rice after a wedding. Does that mean she was a cleaner, someone not invited to the wedding, and only viewing the celebrations from afar? Why would she be doing that?
“I wanted to make it more poignant than her just cleaning up afterward, so it became more about someone who was lonely. Someone not likely to have her own wedding, but only the dream of one.”
Paul McCartney’s handwritten lyrics for Eleanor Rigby – photo: Northwestern University
Bristol’s place in musical history is illustrated on one of the walls in the Bristol Old Vic’s new foyer.
King Street: From Marsh to Metropolis is a mural by Bex Glover painted in 2018, documenting King Street from when it was marshland to the present day.
Paul McCartney and Jane Asher as imagined by Bex Glover – photo: Martin Booth
So whatever happened to Rigby & Evens, which had a warehouse at 22 King Street, according to the Bristol Old Vic website.
According to the National Archives, the company had offices in both Bristol and the Beatles’ home city of Liverpool.
A brass plate featuring the name of the firm was sold at auction by Bonhams in 2005.
The building believed to have once been Rigby & Evens has the Raj restaurant in its basement, which opened in 1981 – photo: Martin Booth
The Beatles: Get Back is the first official standalone book to be released by The Beatles since international bestseller The Beatles Anthology. The 240-page hardcover tells the story of The Beatles’ creation of their 1970 album, Let It Be, in their own words. Priced £40, the book is available for pre-order here.
Main photo: Martin Booth
Read more: Giant pink glitter ball installed on King Street
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