Eleanor... Eleanor Rigby

Eleanor Rigby by The Beatles

Rhythm
Source - Orchestra
Time/Tempo - Moderately uptempo ~135 bpm
Groove - Somewhat sinister, heartfelt empathy
Arrangement
Instrumentation - Orchestra, vocals
Structure/Organization - Intro/verse/chorus/verse/chorus/etc
Emotional Architecture - Simple stoccato driving force during verse, slight build-up for reoccurring hook
Sound Quality
Height - Artfully uses simplicity and silence - has a relatively small frequency range yet maintains a full sound with deep strings, tenor vocals, as well as higher stringed instruments
Width - Good broad width... has harmonies dedicated to either side, as well as melody + background on either side during hook
Depth - Not much depth, very simple... vocals + strings

Eleanor Rigby as performed by Aretha Franklin 

Rhythm
Source - The rhythm section... drums/percussion, bass + keys
Time/Tempo - Largely uptempo feel ~ 140 bpm (somewhat surprisingly close to The Beatles)
Groove - yes.   Very upbeat, incredibly soulful
Arrangement
Instrumentation - Vocal melody + rhythm section
Structure/Organization - Intro/verse/chorus/verse/chorus/etc, bridge/build-up section
Emotional Architecture - Starts soulful and upbeat, ends even more soulful and upbeat
Sound Quality
Height - Good range, bass/rhythm section + higher background vocals and horns (tambourine, too)
Width - Good division of various layered rhythms on either side, i.e. organ and guitar
Depth - Many layers of rhythms working together to make you move

            As far as The Beatles’ version of their tune, “Eleanor Rigby,” the overall sound is quite radically different from much of their other material.  The composition itself sounds fairly in-tune with the rest of their work being done at the time, but the instrumentation is drastically different.  The layers of sound as a whole are very simple, as the overall instrumentation consists of only the vocal melody and the string octet.  While this composition is free of any typical Beatles’ pop instrument backing, the strings have the duty of driving the rhythm and providing any and all support to the melody.  That being said, this turns out as a very simple and artful piece, highly recognizable in pop culture, even today.

While in England, The Beatles were certainly paying close attention to some of the early popular black music being made at the time in the United States.  This was the period when pop music was coming into being and much of the soul found in church music was making its way into the recording studio.  This becomes fairly obvious when listening to some of the vocal styling’s of The Beatles compared to black soul artists of the time.  As it happens to be, the favor was returned several years down the road when renditions of Beatles’ songs were being recorded by artists such as Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Wes Montgomery, The Jackson 5, Richie Havens, and many more.
Aretha’s version takes the same lyrics and structural framework of the Beatles’ version but totally builds it from the ground up.  In the arrangement from Live at Fillmore West, she has an incredibly stacked line-up of backing musicians (Cornell Dupree, Jerry Jemmott, Bernard Purdie, Billy Preston, King Curtis & The Kingpins, and more) playing a fairly standard instrumentation for the time.  Instead of artful simplicity with a string section, Aretha takes the path of electric guitar, bass, organ, drum kit, percussion, a horn section, and backing vocals.  Her studio version is rather enjoyable, but if you’re going to listen you might as well go for the version from 1971’s “Live at Fillmore West”.  This beefed-up, soulful version of The Beatles’ classic tune is more upbeat and really captures that hard-to-explain magical energy that is often found in live soul and R&B recordings.  Aretha’s version includes many rhythms working independently that when layered makes for a very full sound that tends to result in foot tapping, head nodding, or even dancing.  While I regard the original version by The Beatles as a great classic tune, the Aretha Franklin version just seems to rub me in more so the right way.