Disclaimer: I do not own the original lyrics by the Beatles. The Beatles do. Is that clear as mud? Where did that expression come from? We should ask instead if it's clear as….calm water. Yeah. There.

All the Lonely People

Eleanor rigby picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been
Lives in a dream

Eleanor Rigby picked up the rice in a church where a wedding had been. She hadn't been invited. She didn't attend. She just went to the chapel and picked up the small white grains afterwards.

Waits at the window, wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door
Who is it for?

In the moonlight her red knit shawl was easily seen. She got home and put the rice in a jam jar next to her door, along with an odd assortment of buttons, coins, pebbles and other various oddments. Eleanor Rigby sat down in the rocking chair and stared out the window. She awoke with a spray of sunshine across her lap. She slowly smiled.

As people passed by her small, crooked house they walked faster. The adolescents laughed and stared. The mothers pulled their young children away quickly. The men just shook their heads. Eleanor Rigby wasn't normal.

Father mckenzie writing the words of a sermon that no one will hear
No one comes near.

Father McKenzie sat in the darkened chapel of an empty church. His head bent over his work. As he penned the words of forgiveness and living a better life his hand slowed. He thought of years past when people acclaimed his work, his words of peace. Now no one came anymore. He hadn't had a single attendant to church in over ten years.

Look at him working. darning his socks in the night when there's nobody there
What does he care?

Father McKenzie sat at home by the fire place, hands still busy. He thought about how he'd helped the poor mad woman, all those years ago, as he deftly patched his well worn black socks. As the needle patched the hole his mind brought back the scenes. She'd been alone, and upset. Her face was bruised. Father McKenzie helped her to leave the man who'd done that to her. One day she had come to his sermon, it had been full. That was the last time anyone came…

Eleanor rigby died in the church and was buried along with her name
Nobody came

Eleanor Rigby picked up the rice and put it in her pocket. A sound made her lift her head. She recognized the face of the man standing over her. She smiled slowly. Father McKenzie's face darkened. From his black overcoat he removed a length of rope.

He said he needed Eleanor Rigby's help. She stood to comply. Father McKenzie strangled her.

Father mckenzie wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave
No one was saved

She'd ruined him, he'd ruined her. It wasn't a sin, it was justice. Father McKenzie still figured it would be best for him if he took care of the body quietly. He finished filling the grave and stood, his back protesting. He wiped the dirt from his hands and returned to his small home. He bent over his papers once more. "And thus shall all be made right in the sight of Him who dwells above," he wrote.

No one knew Eleanor Rigby was gone. As people passed her house they walked faster. The adolescents laughed and stared. The mothers pulled their young children away quickly. The men just shook their heads. Eleanor Rigby wasn't normal. And week after week Father McKenzie's chapel stayed empty.

All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?