"She's Leaving Home"

Backdated, archival post

[link to original on tumblr]

---&---

When I listened to a few Sgt. Pepper songs about a week ago, I also listened to "She's Leaving Home."  I noticed that the first and third verses start with the same structure ("Wednesday morning at five o'clock..." and "Friday morning at nine o'clock…").  Both mention the day of the week and the time.  I didn't think too much about that at the time, but this morning I got thinking about this again, and I realized that it's not significant that those two are the same, rather that the second verse doesn't follow that structure.  Instead of talking about the titular "she," the second verse deals with the parents when they realize that the girl has gone.

If that structure were followed in the second verse, it'd be "Thursday morning at [some number] o'clock" and go on to tell about the girl.  Instead, it starts with "Father snores as his wife gets into her dressing gown."  The girl isn't physically present anymore, which is reflected in both A) her absence in the verse and B) Thursday's being skipped over.

I listened to the whole album (and noticed some other things, about which some more posts are queued) to finish off my transcription of "She's Leaving Home," and - in doing so - I noticed something else I'd never noticed:  the lines before each chorus all end with a homophone ("buy" or "by"), which - after the proper chorus - are recalled with "bye."  So, the first chorus:

(She) We gave her most of our lives
(Is leaving) Sacrificed most of our lives
(Home) We gave her everything money could buy

She's leaving home
After living alone
(Bye bye) For so many years

The second:

(She) We never thought 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
(Bye bye) For so many years

And the third:

(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
(Bye bye) For so many years

I'm not sure if there's anything to this other than just a poetic effect, but it's a great effect.