LONDON (AP) - Eleanor Rigby: fact or fiction?
That question, which has bedeviled Beatles' fans for decades, may be answered in part by a 1911 hospital payroll sheet to be auctioned in London on Thursday.
The document, sent by Paul McCartney in 1990 to the director of a music charity who had asked for funding, contains the signature of a scullery maid named "E. Rigby" who worked in a Liverpool hospital.
The director of the company auctioning the document believes the woman who signed the payroll is the same Eleanor Rigby buried in 1939 in a Liverpool graveyard next to the church where McCartney met the young John Lennon.
"I've spoken to the person who lived in the house where she used to live, and they've confirmed that the signature is the same signature of the person in the graveyard," said Tom Owen of the Fame Bureau auction house, adding that the finding may contradict McCartney's longtime assertion that the song was based on a made-up character.
"It's intriguing that McCartney owned it because he says he created the song around a fictitious figure," said Owen. "And yet, how did he have this document and why did he have it? When he was asked to donate money, he sent this."
Interest is so high it's estimated the document may fetch $750,000.
McCartney has said the song was not based on a real person but concedes he may have been subconsciously influenced by seeing the tombstone.
When the auction was announced earlier this month, he released a statement reiterating that the character was not real. "If someone wants to spend money buying a document to prove that a fictitious character exists, that's fine with me," McCartney said.
The payroll sheet was signed by "E. Rigby" after she collected her pay at Liverpool's City Hospital. McCartney has not revealed how he got the document, or why he sent it to the charity 18 years ago.
According to the tombstone, Eleanor Rigby was born in 1895. If she is the woman who signed the hospital payroll, she would have been about 16 at the time. She worked as a maid washing pots and pans in the hospital kitchen, the document says.
The song "Eleanor Rigby," released in 1966 as a single and on the Beatles'"Revolver" album, represented a sharp break for the band, which until then had largely relied on cheerful tunes for their international hits.
With its haunting refrain, "Ah, look at all the lonely people," it is a devastating portrayal of an isolated woman whose death draws so little notice that no one attends her funeral.
There are no rock 'n' roll guitars or drums on the somber track - McCartney's lead vocal is backed by violins, violas and cellos arranged by Beatles producer George Martin.
"It's a Beatles song with no Beatles instruments," said Glenn Gass, a rock historian who teaches a course on the Beatles at Indiana University.
"It's just so bleak and so sad: she picks up the rice at someone else's wedding, the whole image of her wearing a face that she keeps in a jar by the door. There are things happening emotionally that you just can't see. It's not a pop song in any traditional sense, but it's one of their great songs."
Lennon and George Harrison sing harmony; Ringo Starr does not play or sing, although Beatles experts say he contributed one line to the lyrics. "Eleanor Rigby" is credited to the Lennon-McCartney writing team, but it is widely regarded as primarily by McCartney.
McCartney has said he considered naming the woman in the song "Daisy Hawkins." He also mulled naming the unsympathetic priest "Father McCartney" but decided on "Father McKenzie" so his own father wouldn't be burdened.
The song has had so much impact that a statue honoring Eleanor Rigby - be she real or imagined - has been built in downtown Liverpool. Passers-by often place flowers there.
Owen said "every penny" from the auction will go to Sunbeams Music Trust, a charity that provides music instruction to people with special needs.
The charity's founder, Annie Mawson, received the document from McCartney after writing him an 11-page letter seeking help for her foundation, which uses Beatles songs, among others, to teach music to people with physical and mental disabilities. She has found, for example, that autistic children respond well to Beatles music.
"I told Paul McCartney how his music had helped so many vulnerable children," she said.
She hand-delivered the letter to McCartney's London office in 1989 and received the hospital payroll document in the mail the following year. It was in an envelope carrying the logo of McCartney's world tour, but did not contain any note.
"I think my letter moved him, so he sent me this beautiful parchment document, a ledger, from 1911, showing E. Rigby," Mawson said. "My head was whirling when I saw the significance."
Her plan is to use the proceeds from the auction to finally build a music instruction center in Cumbria, England, where the charity is based.
"This is what I dreamt about in the '90s," she said, explaining that she held the document for years as the value of Beatles memorabilia soared.
"It's taken this long to develop the charity and get a good team behind it and now we really need a proper center."
That question, which has bedeviled Beatles' fans for decades, may be answered in part by a 1911 hospital payroll sheet to be auctioned in London on Thursday.
The document, sent by Paul McCartney in 1990 to the director of a music charity who had asked for funding, contains the signature of a scullery maid named "E. Rigby" who worked in a Liverpool hospital.
The director of the company auctioning the document believes the woman who signed the payroll is the same Eleanor Rigby buried in 1939 in a Liverpool graveyard next to the church where McCartney met the young John Lennon.
"I've spoken to the person who lived in the house where she used to live, and they've confirmed that the signature is the same signature of the person in the graveyard," said Tom Owen of the Fame Bureau auction house, adding that the finding may contradict McCartney's longtime assertion that the song was based on a made-up character.
"It's intriguing that McCartney owned it because he says he created the song around a fictitious figure," said Owen. "And yet, how did he have this document and why did he have it? When he was asked to donate money, he sent this."
Interest is so high it's estimated the document may fetch $750,000.
McCartney has said the song was not based on a real person but concedes he may have been subconsciously influenced by seeing the tombstone.
When the auction was announced earlier this month, he released a statement reiterating that the character was not real. "If someone wants to spend money buying a document to prove that a fictitious character exists, that's fine with me," McCartney said.
The payroll sheet was signed by "E. Rigby" after she collected her pay at Liverpool's City Hospital. McCartney has not revealed how he got the document, or why he sent it to the charity 18 years ago.
According to the tombstone, Eleanor Rigby was born in 1895. If she is the woman who signed the hospital payroll, she would have been about 16 at the time. She worked as a maid washing pots and pans in the hospital kitchen, the document says.
The song "Eleanor Rigby," released in 1966 as a single and on the Beatles'"Revolver" album, represented a sharp break for the band, which until then had largely relied on cheerful tunes for their international hits.
With its haunting refrain, "Ah, look at all the lonely people," it is a devastating portrayal of an isolated woman whose death draws so little notice that no one attends her funeral.
There are no rock 'n' roll guitars or drums on the somber track - McCartney's lead vocal is backed by violins, violas and cellos arranged by Beatles producer George Martin.
"It's a Beatles song with no Beatles instruments," said Glenn Gass, a rock historian who teaches a course on the Beatles at Indiana University.
"It's just so bleak and so sad: she picks up the rice at someone else's wedding, the whole image of her wearing a face that she keeps in a jar by the door. There are things happening emotionally that you just can't see. It's not a pop song in any traditional sense, but it's one of their great songs."
Lennon and George Harrison sing harmony; Ringo Starr does not play or sing, although Beatles experts say he contributed one line to the lyrics. "Eleanor Rigby" is credited to the Lennon-McCartney writing team, but it is widely regarded as primarily by McCartney.
McCartney has said he considered naming the woman in the song "Daisy Hawkins." He also mulled naming the unsympathetic priest "Father McCartney" but decided on "Father McKenzie" so his own father wouldn't be burdened.
The song has had so much impact that a statue honoring Eleanor Rigby - be she real or imagined - has been built in downtown Liverpool. Passers-by often place flowers there.
Owen said "every penny" from the auction will go to Sunbeams Music Trust, a charity that provides music instruction to people with special needs.
The charity's founder, Annie Mawson, received the document from McCartney after writing him an 11-page letter seeking help for her foundation, which uses Beatles songs, among others, to teach music to people with physical and mental disabilities. She has found, for example, that autistic children respond well to Beatles music.
"I told Paul McCartney how his music had helped so many vulnerable children," she said.
She hand-delivered the letter to McCartney's London office in 1989 and received the hospital payroll document in the mail the following year. It was in an envelope carrying the logo of McCartney's world tour, but did not contain any note.
"I think my letter moved him, so he sent me this beautiful parchment document, a ledger, from 1911, showing E. Rigby," Mawson said. "My head was whirling when I saw the significance."
Her plan is to use the proceeds from the auction to finally build a music instruction center in Cumbria, England, where the charity is based.
"This is what I dreamt about in the '90s," she said, explaining that she held the document for years as the value of Beatles memorabilia soared.
"It's taken this long to develop the charity and get a good team behind it and now we really need a proper center."
The following, from the Wall Street Journal, well, you know why it's here, I know I could have seen it coming. Sigh.
For some, the first sign of trouble was a Daytona Spyder.
When one of these rare early-1970s Ferrari sports cars turns up at an auction, high-end collectors typically bid aggressively, even fiercely, to acquire it. But at a recent sale in California, one Spyder failed to fetch the minimum bid.
In recent years, the vintage car market has soared, led by the priciest European models. But now, as the economy worsens to the point where even the wealthiest collectors feel pinched, demand for million-dollar sports cars is starting to skid.
View Slideshow
Dealers, auction-company executives and others in the business acknowledge the downturn but say that, until recently, it has mainly affected the low end of the market: cars costing up to about $100,000, many of them American models. And while some insist that Ferraris, Mercedes-Benzes and Alfa Romeos are still holding their value, an increasing number of sellers are looking to unload their cars in a hurry to raise cash after losing their jobs, or a large chunk of their wealth in the stock-market plunge, say car auctioneers and others.
Recently, two of Michael Sheehan's clients came to him looking to sell their Ferraris in a hurry -- an unusual request. "They needed cash now," says Mr. Sheehan, a longtime Ferrari broker in Newport Beach, Calif. The cars, a $110,000 1982 Berlinetta Boxer and a $950,000 1972 Daytona Spyder, wound up selling for about 25% less than they would have sold for just a few months ago.
Both sellers themselves were in hammered industries: One was a home builder from Chicago, and the other a former Lehman Bros. executive from New York.
Mr. Sheehan says he and others saw it as a bad omen when the Daytona Spyder failed to sell during an annual weekend of car shows, auctions and racing events on California's Monterey Peninsula in August. The event attracts some of the most sought-after cars and well-to-do collectors, and sales this year included several record prices.
Surprisingly, though, there were four Daytona Spyders -- which are sleek, shapely two-seat convertibles -- up for sale this year by three auction companies. That's considered too many for a car of which only about 120 were made. While one sold for about $1.5 million, two others sold for between $1 million and $1.1 million. The fourth failed to sell because bids fell short of the reserve price.
"Monterey was the swan song," Mr. Sheehan says. "Since then the Ferrari market has fallen 20% to 30%."
There were other signs of trouble at the summer auto auctions. Mike Regalia was at an auction in Pebble Beach, Calif., in August when bidding began for a Porsche that once belonged to actor Steve McQueen. The auction house's estimate was $125,000 to $175,000, though Mr. Regalia, a Sun Valley, Calif., collector who also restores vintage cars, says he thought it would fetch at least $200,000. After all, collectors have paid outlandish sums recently for the late actor's property.
Bidding on the Porsche slowed just above $100,000.
"I realized that the car wasn't going to get anywhere near the number I expected," he says. So he wound up bidding $125,000 and taking the car home. "I hadn't planned on bidding, but I kept thinking, 'These people must be asleep,' " says Mr. Regalia.
Or maybe they just ran out of money. Amid the broad economic deterioration of recent months, spending on extravagances like antique cars has slowed. In many cases, people can no longer afford even to keep their collections, says David Gooding, president of Gooding & Co., a Los Angeles car auction house.
In the past year, many collectors who used home-equity loans or other credit to buy the vintage convertible or muscle car of their dreams have had to sell as the housing and credit markets have declined. The same factors have kept new collectors from entering the market. As a result, many staple collector cars like 1957 Chevrolets, 1940 Fords and 1960s Pontiac GTOs are selling for half what they commanded two or three years ago.
According to industry tracker CNW Research, long-established classic cars are also suffering. The price of a 1934 Packard Touring is down 17% on average, compared with two years ago. The 1957 Ford Thunderbird is down 15%, and the 1940 Ford DeLuxe Coupe is down 40%.
Market watchers are bracing themselves for the next big round of high-end auto auctions in Scottsdale, Ariz., in January -- long a collective barometer of the market's condition. Some fear that these auctions may disappoint, much like this month's New York contemporary-art sales by the Sotheby's and Christie's auction houses. The Sotheby's sale totaled $125 million, well below the low estimate. The Christie's sale brought in $113.6 million, or about half the low estimate. At both auctions, about a third of the lots failed to sell.
For some collectors, the downturn could be a good time to amass a long-coveted vehicle or two -- not just because prices are often lower, but because cars that weren't for sale before are suddenly available. John McCue of Half Moon Bay, Calif., bought a 1958 Mercury Park Lane last summer for $39,000. The 61-year-old retired software executive says it probably cost him about 5% less than the car's value a year earlier. But since he has pursued the car for years, he knows the former owner wouldn't have sold it then.
"There are those cars that you think will never be for sale, the ones the owners will take to their graves," he says. "Well, now a lot of those cars are changing hands."
While many in the collecting business say there will always be enough wealthy people who want vintage cars, others fear the market could be headed for a repeat of its last crash in 1989, when speculators who had no particular interest in vintage cars drove a steep, if fleeting, run-up in prices. Today, more of the buyers are car lovers, but speculation underpins their motives as well.
"The love of cars never outweighs the love of money," Mr. Gooding says.
Write to Jonathan Welsh at jonathan.welsh@wsj.com
For some, the first sign of trouble was a Daytona Spyder.
When one of these rare early-1970s Ferrari sports cars turns up at an auction, high-end collectors typically bid aggressively, even fiercely, to acquire it. But at a recent sale in California, one Spyder failed to fetch the minimum bid.
In recent years, the vintage car market has soared, led by the priciest European models. But now, as the economy worsens to the point where even the wealthiest collectors feel pinched, demand for million-dollar sports cars is starting to skid.
View Slideshow
Dealers, auction-company executives and others in the business acknowledge the downturn but say that, until recently, it has mainly affected the low end of the market: cars costing up to about $100,000, many of them American models. And while some insist that Ferraris, Mercedes-Benzes and Alfa Romeos are still holding their value, an increasing number of sellers are looking to unload their cars in a hurry to raise cash after losing their jobs, or a large chunk of their wealth in the stock-market plunge, say car auctioneers and others.
Recently, two of Michael Sheehan's clients came to him looking to sell their Ferraris in a hurry -- an unusual request. "They needed cash now," says Mr. Sheehan, a longtime Ferrari broker in Newport Beach, Calif. The cars, a $110,000 1982 Berlinetta Boxer and a $950,000 1972 Daytona Spyder, wound up selling for about 25% less than they would have sold for just a few months ago.
Both sellers themselves were in hammered industries: One was a home builder from Chicago, and the other a former Lehman Bros. executive from New York.
Mr. Sheehan says he and others saw it as a bad omen when the Daytona Spyder failed to sell during an annual weekend of car shows, auctions and racing events on California's Monterey Peninsula in August. The event attracts some of the most sought-after cars and well-to-do collectors, and sales this year included several record prices.
Surprisingly, though, there were four Daytona Spyders -- which are sleek, shapely two-seat convertibles -- up for sale this year by three auction companies. That's considered too many for a car of which only about 120 were made. While one sold for about $1.5 million, two others sold for between $1 million and $1.1 million. The fourth failed to sell because bids fell short of the reserve price.
"Monterey was the swan song," Mr. Sheehan says. "Since then the Ferrari market has fallen 20% to 30%."
There were other signs of trouble at the summer auto auctions. Mike Regalia was at an auction in Pebble Beach, Calif., in August when bidding began for a Porsche that once belonged to actor Steve McQueen. The auction house's estimate was $125,000 to $175,000, though Mr. Regalia, a Sun Valley, Calif., collector who also restores vintage cars, says he thought it would fetch at least $200,000. After all, collectors have paid outlandish sums recently for the late actor's property.
Bidding on the Porsche slowed just above $100,000.
"I realized that the car wasn't going to get anywhere near the number I expected," he says. So he wound up bidding $125,000 and taking the car home. "I hadn't planned on bidding, but I kept thinking, 'These people must be asleep,' " says Mr. Regalia.
Or maybe they just ran out of money. Amid the broad economic deterioration of recent months, spending on extravagances like antique cars has slowed. In many cases, people can no longer afford even to keep their collections, says David Gooding, president of Gooding & Co., a Los Angeles car auction house.
In the past year, many collectors who used home-equity loans or other credit to buy the vintage convertible or muscle car of their dreams have had to sell as the housing and credit markets have declined. The same factors have kept new collectors from entering the market. As a result, many staple collector cars like 1957 Chevrolets, 1940 Fords and 1960s Pontiac GTOs are selling for half what they commanded two or three years ago.
According to industry tracker CNW Research, long-established classic cars are also suffering. The price of a 1934 Packard Touring is down 17% on average, compared with two years ago. The 1957 Ford Thunderbird is down 15%, and the 1940 Ford DeLuxe Coupe is down 40%.
Market watchers are bracing themselves for the next big round of high-end auto auctions in Scottsdale, Ariz., in January -- long a collective barometer of the market's condition. Some fear that these auctions may disappoint, much like this month's New York contemporary-art sales by the Sotheby's and Christie's auction houses. The Sotheby's sale totaled $125 million, well below the low estimate. The Christie's sale brought in $113.6 million, or about half the low estimate. At both auctions, about a third of the lots failed to sell.
For some collectors, the downturn could be a good time to amass a long-coveted vehicle or two -- not just because prices are often lower, but because cars that weren't for sale before are suddenly available. John McCue of Half Moon Bay, Calif., bought a 1958 Mercury Park Lane last summer for $39,000. The 61-year-old retired software executive says it probably cost him about 5% less than the car's value a year earlier. But since he has pursued the car for years, he knows the former owner wouldn't have sold it then.
"There are those cars that you think will never be for sale, the ones the owners will take to their graves," he says. "Well, now a lot of those cars are changing hands."
While many in the collecting business say there will always be enough wealthy people who want vintage cars, others fear the market could be headed for a repeat of its last crash in 1989, when speculators who had no particular interest in vintage cars drove a steep, if fleeting, run-up in prices. Today, more of the buyers are car lovers, but speculation underpins their motives as well.
"The love of cars never outweighs the love of money," Mr. Gooding says.
Write to Jonathan Welsh at jonathan.welsh@wsj.com
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