She's leaving home

If I had to pick a favourite Beatles song it would be She's Leaving Home.  It is arranged so brilliantly, with the harp chords, mellow cello counter melody, smooth strings and it's amazingly clever narrative lyrics.  It's a bit like Eleanor Rigby in that respect, which I also love but She's Leaving Home always touched a nerve with me.  Even as a child I found the song left me with mixed emotions.  It is full of conflict.

People love to analyse Beatles songs and they are often afforded transformative powers. The AQA exam board recently added three songs from the Sargent Pepper Album to the GCSE music syllabus. She's leaving home isn't one of them and I'm actually quite glad. Having to learn what an exam board thinks is the correct answer can suck all the fun and creativity from a song.

I have read articles that claim that the song is Paul McCartney commenting on the generation gap that existed in the sixties. They say that the parents have stifled the girl with their conservative pious attitude, which is represented by the close harmonies in the chorus making it sound like church. They paint the story as older people not understanding the needs of their liberated sixties children.

I never heard it like that. Paul McCartney was brilliant at spotting a story and any good story has conflict and can be seen from different angles. This was based on a newspaper cutting from the Daily Mail about Melanie Cole,17, who had gone missing. He used some of the parents quotes in the song but I don't think he missed the conflict of the girl or the parents. I thought it was terribly sad that the girl had to leave a note that she hoped would say more because parents who had given her most of their lives and sacrificed most of their lives would have been only to help her find what she was looking for.

Teenagers are notoriously self obsessed, so that they can make decisions about their life and future, while parents always want the best for their children. 

This song has been stuck in my head recently and I admit to some conflict. I am amazingly proud of my daughter who has finished her degree and landed herself a really nice job. However, I am also sad. She won't be coming home and will instead make a life for herself eighty miles away. When your child goes to University you feel some of this sadness but you know they will be back with piles of washing, a craving for roast dinner and unusual sleep patterns every holiday. Secretly, you hope that they will find a job close to home and maybe they could live with you until they are established (even though you know they would drive you absolutely mad.). It's quite a conflict but I'm trying to be wise and say nothing (whoops too late).

I will just say to the LSH in the words of the song, "Daddy our baby's gone," but not before we finish rushing round helping her to buy a car and find somewhere to live and I'm certain we will always worry.