Paul McCartney: Dare to sound foolish.
Paul McCartney played at his piano and a line appeared: “Picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been.”
He liked it, but wondered who was picking up the rice, “Daisy Mackenzie?” The name worked for now, but he knew it wasn’t right.
“I had to sort of think, what do those words say? Picks up the rice in the church. Oh good, so she’s a lonely old lady type.”
Later, walking through Bristol, he saw a shop called Rigby’s. “That’s a great name, Rigby. Because it’s kind of normal but it’s got a little extra thing to it.”
Then Eleanor — Eleanor Rigby, it just fit.
“Eleanor Rigby picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been. And then it just all kind of flowed from there.”
Years later, trying to explain this process during an interview with Melvyn Bragg, McCartney demonstrated: “You can do it any time. This will probably be crummy, but you can just—”
He began singing, “Melvyn Bragg, was in the parlor, and he said that he was going to have some tea…”
Laughing, he said, “I mean that’s not very good, but you could work on that.”
So he tried again, “Melvyn Bragg was in the... gonna have some tea, will you have some tea with me? Melvyn Bragg…”
Still chuckling, McCartney noted:
“I mean, that’s not good, but that’s the kind of thing it comes from. You just dare enough. I’m showing what a lousy writer I am. But that’s what it all comes out of. You just plunk around anything. It can be bad three times, but then maybe the fourth time, a little bit of inspiration will come on that, and just the one little thing will turn that into something good.”
The man who wrote Yesterday and Eleanor Rigby, showed us exactly how he got there: daring to sound foolish first.
(Source: The South Bank Show | 1978)
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Revision History: Version 1 (Oct 8-10, 2025)
Foolish fun