She's Leaving Home

I was in my Beatles and 60s class, and my professor was telling us about the inspiration behind the song She's Leaving Home (I had not heard this story before-shocking!). It was the story of 17 year old Melanie Coe who had run away from her parents' comfortable North London home in 1967. The news of her disappearance made front page news, and after reading the story Paul McCartney was inspired to write the song, which ended up on The Beatles' revolutionary album Sgt.Pepper.
However, McCartney's reading of her escape in the newspapers was not the first time he had come across her:
"I first met Paul when I was 13 on the pop show Ready Steady Go!
"He presented me with first prize for miming to Brenda Lee's Let's Jump The Broomstick, which meant I danced on the show for a year," says Melanie.
"We had spent a long day in the studio filming. John Lennon was aloof and unapproachable, Paul shook our hands but Ringo and George were sweethearts, chatting to us all day.
"Something probably clicked in Paul's mind when he read the story about me running away from home three years later, as it was pretty unusual back then."

She's Leaving Home

Wednesday morning at five o'clock as the day begings
Silently closing her bedroom door
Leaving the note that she hoped would say more
She goes downstairs to the kitchen clutching her hankerchief
Quietly turing the backdoor key
Stepping outside she is free.
She (we gave her most of our lives)
Is leaving (sacraficed most of our lives)
Home (we gave her everything money could buy)
She's leaving home after living alone
For so many years. bye, bye
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 and 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 though of ourselves)
Is leaving (never a thought for ourselves)
Home (we struggled hard all our lives to get by)
She's leaving home after living alone
For so many years. bye, bye
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 fun is the one thing that money can't buy
Something inside that was always denied
For so many years. bye, bye
She's leaving home bye bye


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