Your classic song with a day of the week in the lyrics song of the day is “She’s Leaving Home” by the Beatles. The word “Wednesday” is not in the song’s title but it is the very first word of the very first line of the lyric:
Wednesday morning at five o’clock
As the day begins
Silently closing her bedroom door
Leaving the note that she hoped would say moreShe goes down the stairs to the kitchen
Clutching her handkerchief
Quietly turning the backdoor key
Stepping outside, she is free
“She’s Leaving Home” is the next-to-last track on side one of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The song was written by Paul McCartney with John Lennon contributing to the choruses; they each sang the parts they wrote, Paul taking the lead and John doing that counterpoint in the choruses. It was never released as a single, although it immediately became a core part of the Beatles’ legacy.
The song is about a young woman finally stepping away from the shadow of her parents and going out on her own. It’s as simple as that but extremely moving, whether you view it from the point of the daughter or the parents. “She’s Leaving Home” kind of sides with the young woman, as you might expect it to, but you see the effect on the parents, as well. It’s brilliant, really, not just lyrically but also musically. It just tears at your heart.
Unlike most Beatles songs, the Beatles themselves play no instruments on this track. Paul and John handle the vocals, of course, but the instrumental backing is by a string section consisting of three violins, two violas, three cellos, a double bass, and a harp. The string arrangement was by Mike Leander; George Martin, who typically did all the Beatles’ arrangements, was unavailable when Paul wanted to record the song. As Sir Paul recalls:
“I wrote that. My kind of ballad from that period. My daughter likes that one. One of my daughters likes that. Still works. The other thing I remember is that George Martin was offended that I used another arranger. He was busy and I was itching to get on with it; I was inspired. I think George had a lot of difficulty forgiving me for that. It hurt him; I didn’t mean to”
“She’s Leaving Home” was universally acclaimed. Brian Wilson recalls his reaction when McCartney played it on piano for him: “We both just cried. It was beautiful.” Composer Ned Rorem said that the song was “equal to any song that Schubert ever wrote.” It’s routinely cited as one of the Beatles’ top songs, as it rightly should be.
Musically, “She’s Leaving Home” has a simple chorus consisting of I, minor v6, vi, and II7 chords, in the key of E major. The verse is a little more complex, alternating between that minor v6 chord and the more traditional V9, with the II7 and then a more traditional ii7/V thrown in for good measure. It’s a minor, melancholic feel that perfectly matches the ambivalence of the lyrics. The decision to use a string section instead of the normal band reinforces the mood.
McCartney was inspired to write “She’s Leaving Home” after reading a story in the Daily Mirror about a 17 year-old girl named Melanie Coe who ran away from home but was found and returned home ten days later. The lyrics pretty much track Ms. Coe’s story with a few minor details changed. (Her boyfriend was a croupier in a nightclub, not from the motor trade, for example.) In real life, Ms. Coe was pregnant and later had an abortion.
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band is acclaimed by many as the Beatles’ best album and one of the top albums of all time, period. I don’t completely concur; I tend to prefer Abbey Road to Pepper most days, although it’s close. One cannot argue with the impact and influence the album had on the world of music and society as a whole. There’s popular music pre-Pepper and popular music post-Pepper, and there’s a big difference between the two. It’s said that McCartney and Lennon were inspired to create Pepper after hearing Brian Wilson’s work on the Beach Boys’ groundbreaking Pet Sounds album, and Wilson said that Pet Sounds was inspired by the Beatles’ equally groundbreaking Rubber Soul. That’s the way the world worked back then.
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was released on May 26, 1967. It was an immediate success, hitting #1 on all the album charts in all major countries, including the Billboard 200. It has sold more than 32 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling albums in music history. The album was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame, topped Rolling Stone’s initial list of “500 Greatest Albums of All Time,” and was one of just fifty albums chosen by the Library of Congress to be added to the National Recording Registry as a “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant” work. That success was due in part to the genius of “She’s Leaving Home,” along with all the other tunes on this legendary album. It still holds up today.
