She´s Leaving Home ~ The Beatles - Harry Nilsson - Bryan Ferry - Billy Bragg ~ Cover w/ Guild D-30

(c)1967 Words & Music by John Lennon - Paul McCartney (Collab)
Track 6 on album "Sgt Pepper´s Lonely Hearts Club Band"
Arr. stagwolf
~~~~~~~~~
Wednesday morning at five o'clock as the day begins, silently closing her bedroom door
Leaving the note that she hoped would say more, she goes downstairs to the kitchen clutching her hankerchief
Quietly turning the backdoor key, stepping outside she is free..
She (We gave her most of our lives) is leaving (Sacrificed most of our lives)
Home.. She's leaving home after living alone for so many years..
Father snores as his wife gets into her dressing gown, picks up the letter that's lying there
Standing alone at the top of the stairs, she breaks down & cries to her husband "Daddy our baby's gone!
Why would she treat us so thoughtlessly? How could she do this to me?"
She (We never thought of ourselves) is leaving (Never a thought for ourselves)
Home.. She's leaving home after living alone for so many years..
Friday morning at nine o'clock she is far away, waiting to keep the appointment she made
Meeting a man from the motor trade
She (What did we do that was wrong) is having (We didn't know it was wrong)
Fun.. Something inside that was always denied for so many years, she's leaving home, bye bye
~~~
~~~
This was based on a newspaper story Paul McCartney read about a runaway girl. On February 27th, 1967 the London Daily Mail's headline read: "A-level girl dumps car and vanishes." That girl was 17-year-old Melanie Coe, who had ran away from home leaving everything behind. Her father was quoted as saying, "I cannot imagine why she should run away, she has everything here." McCartney said in 1000 UK #1 Hits by Jon Kutner and Spencer Leigh, "We'd seen that story and it was my inspiration. There was a lot of these at the time and that was enough to give us the storyline. So I started to get the lyrics: she slips out and leaves a note and the parents wake up, it was rather poignant. I like it as a song and when I showed it to John, he added the Greek chorus and long sustained notes. One of the nice things about the structure of the song is that it stays on those chords endlessly."
Melanie Coe, who became an estate agency director, told Dave Simpson her story in a 2008 interview for The Guardian. Said Coe: "London was a very different place in the '60s. I went to a club called the Bag O' Nails [Soho] and I met everybody. You sat on the next table to the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Hollies, because there weren't many clubs in London. I got in coz I was a cute little girl and I dressed in the latest fashions. I'd go to Mary Quant and Biba, sketch the dress and get my aunt to make my clothes. Ready Steady Go! loved that. They held open auditions. I was 13. It went on what you were wearing and how you danced. I was asked to come every week. I met the Beatles at Ready Steady Go! George was great to meet - I looked a lot like Pattie Boyd, who later became his wife, of course.
I was always going out. I danced the night away and was a face in London. In those days, to be trendy everything had to be French. I bought the T-shirt of the moment, which was my star sign in French. I loved that T-shirt. One day I got home and my mother had cut it to ribbons. She wanted me to look like Princess Anne, not my idol, Marianne Faithfull. When my parents found out I had the pill they grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and made me flush them down the toilet.
I was 17 by then and ran away leaving a note, just like in the song. I went to a doctor and he said I was pregnant, but I didn't know that before I left home. My best friend at the time was married to Ritchie Blackmore, so she hid me at their house in Holloway Road. It was the first place my parents came to look, so I ran off with my boyfriend, who was a croupier, although he had been 'in the motor trade' like it says in the song. I think my dad called up the newspapers - my picture was on the front pages. He made out that I must have been kidnapped, because why would I leave? They gave me everything - coats, cars. But not love. My parents found me after three weeks and I had an abortion.
I didn't realize for a long time that the song was about me. Years later Paul was on a program talking about how he'd seen a newspaper article and been inspired by it. My mother pieced it all together and called me to say, 'That song's about you!'
I can't listen to the song. It's just too sad for me. My parents died a long time ago and we were never resolved. That line, 'She's leaving home after living alone for so many years' is so weird to me because that's why I left. I was so alone. How did Paul know that those were the feelings that drove me towards one-night stands with rock stars? I don't think he can have possibly realized that he'd met me when I was 13 on Ready Steady Go!, but when he saw the picture, something just clicked."

[dedstar]

Hi,
Nice post. I LIKE it! Thumbs up!
Thank you very much.
Best regards,
Dedstra

[dedstar]

Hi my The Beatles friend,
Lovely Lovely cover. Vocal is beautiful. All intonations like The Beatles had. Thumbs up!
All the best from Moscow,
Dedstar

[shargram]

Great cover JPGR, classic Beatles song.

[johngarcia]

Very nice vocals. Good job on the guitar. Rock on!

[southernmonkey]

MR. Your voice is So Reminiscent, of Paul's the tonal characteristics are TRUELY Amazing you sound so smooth, as well as your playing! Which is also Awesome! I've played in many bands, and played professionally, and you take the Cake! Looking FOWARD to more of your Stuff!

[kajwilhelm]

Nice version, works very well this way too. Great vocals!