Paul McCartney had met Melanie Coe, the girl from the story of The Daily Mail but he didn’t know. Coincidentally, Coe had met The Beatles some time before. On 4 October 1963 she won a miming competition on the TV music show Ready Steady Go. The Beatles were making their first appearance on the show that day, and Paul McCartney presented her with the award.
“I cannot imagine why she should run away,” her father said in the article. “She has everything here … even her fur coat.”
When i red the story – told McCartney – i saw the tale as a parable for the ’60s generation gap – a young girl’s rejection of a respectable life of comfort in “straight” society in favor of running off and having some rock ’n’ roll fun. “Fun is the one thing that money can’t buy,” the words John Lennon added at the song
Coe had become a rock fanatic, appearing TV show Ready Steady Go! in the fall of 1963 becoming a steady girl in London rock scene at Soho’s Bag O’Nails club.
“I was 17 by then and ran away leaving a note, just like in the song,” Coe told The Guardian in 2008. “I went to a doctor and he said I was pregnant, but I didn’t know that before I left home. My best friend at the time was married to Ritchie Blackmore, so she hid me at their house in Holloway Road. It was the first place my parents came to look, so I ran off with my boyfriend, who was a croupier, although he had been ‘in the motor trade’ like it says in the song. I think my dad called up the newspapers – my picture was on the front pages. He made out that I must have been kidnapped, because why would I leave? They gave me everything – coats, cars. But not love. My parents found me after three weeks and I had an abortion.” (songfact.com)
We didn’t know much about the story so we inventing details like the note and the “man from the motor trade . Lennon contributed the parents’ perspective. McCartney credited Lennon with adding the “Greek chorus
“Paul had the basic theme for this song, but all those lines like ‘We sacrificed most of our life … We gave her everything money could buy,’ those were the things Mimi used to say to me,” Lennon said. “It was easy to write.” Beatles Book.com
So we called George Martin – who had arranged the strings on those songs – to invite him over the next day to write the orchestral backing but martin was up to date with other recording sessions in the EMI studios. Then Paul asked Mike Leander, who had arranged the strings on recordings by Ben E. King and the Drifters
The arpist who playd in the song recalls
“First of all, I played exactly what was written,” Bromberg told the BBC in 2011. “Then I stopped and [McCartney] said, ‘No, I don’t want that. I want something, ehhhh … ’ I think he had an idea in his head of what he wanted it to sound like but he couldn’t describe it, he couldn’t express it, and he was waiting for somebody to bring it out of the air. During the session, after each time we played it, Paul McCartney, we would hear from the controls, ‘No, I don’t want that. I want something, ehhh … ’ So we’d play it again.” (BBC.com - You Tube)
After six full takes, the Friday evening session arrived at midnight and the musicians decided they had done their job and were going home. McCartney had no say in the matter. Imagine his astonishment when, on Monday, March 20, engineers Geoff Emerick and Richard Lush found all six takes to be acceptable. They soon decided that the first one was what they’d use for the master, to which McCartney and Lennon would add their vocal parts on this night. Source: Complete Beatles Recording Sessions book
“She’s Leaving Home” was sped up slightly for themono mix to make McCartney sound younger,
Coe recalled. “My mother pieced it all together and called me to say, ‘That song’s about you!’ I can’t listen to the song. It’s just too sad for me. My parents died a long time ago and we were never resolved.”
