Paul McCartney’s Full-Circle Masterpiece: The Eleanor Rigby Connection

In his new album, Paul McCartney revisits a character he has been subtly developing for decades. The track “Momma Gets By” serves as a poignant, full-circle epilogue to the lonely woman immortalized in the 1966 classic Eleanor Rigby. McCartney has long hinted that Eleanor’s story extended beyond the song’s famous final line, “died in the church and was buried along with her name.” Now, he finally provides the narrative closure.

The new song reframes Eleanor as a resilient, unnamed mother figure—”Momma”—who, despite isolation, finds quiet strength in daily survival. Key narrative beats include:

  • Parallel loneliness: Both characters exist in a world of unspoken grief.
  • Lyrical echoes: “Momma Gets By” mirrors Eleanor’s haunting imagery of empty churches and unkept homes.
  • Musical symmetry: The arrangement subtly recalls the original’s string orchestration, now warmer and more forgiving.

McCartney’s lifelong fascination with Eleanor Rigby—a name he famously took from a shop sign and a headstone—finds its emotional resolution here. “Momma Gets By” is not a sequel but a revelation: the woman who “wears a face that she keeps in a jar by the door” was always, in McCartney’s mind, getting by. The album track transforms a tragic figure into a survivor, proving that some stories take a lifetime to finish telling.

Source: Rolling Stone – Paul McCartney Has Been Telling Eleanor Rigby’s Story His Entire Life