#JukeboxPaultje The Beatles - She's Leaving Home
In de vakantie mag het tempo ietsje losser en maken we graag gebruik van andere bronnen. Daarom mag Modvader Paul Weller zijn favoriete platen citeren zoals hij dat in een recente Record Collector (voor Chris Catchpole) deed… Een weekje juke-box-paultje, een mens gemaakt van muziek.
De moeder van Weller was slechts achttien toen ze kleine Paul op de wereld zettte en kocht als iedere tiener iedere rock-‘n-roll single beschikbaar dus groeide Paul Weller op met alle vroege Beatles singles en toen hij, op zijn vijfde, the Beatles op tv zag op The Royal Command Performance in november ’63 was hij verkocht voor het leven:
“I didn’t know at that age that music was what I wanted to do because I would’ve been too young, but it felt like music was more important than just entertainment and that feeling grew stronger the older I got”.
Op zijn tiende speelde hij met zijn vriendje op een plastic gitaar en drummend op koekjestrommels en de oudere broer van het vriendje liet hem voor het eerst 'Sgt. Pepper's' horen: “It blew me away. It was incredible”. In de lokale krantenwinkel in Woking verkochten ze ook lp’s en 'Sgt. Pepper’s' stond in de etalage “for fucking ages and I used to walk past and just stare at it. I saved up for it and I had a yard sale of my toys just to get enough money to buy it and it was the first album I ever bought, a big moment. I didn’t get it until ’68, it probably took me a year to save up for the fucker… I was very, very particular about it, I just used to pore over the sleeve for hours and hours, re-reading the words and those lyrics are indelibly erched on my mind forever…”
Vandaag kiest hij She’s Leaving Home’ dat Paul McCartney had opgepikt via een krantenartikel over een weggelopen zeventienjarig meisje om alle miserie achter haar achter te laten. McCartney: "We'd seen that story and it was my inspiration. There was a lot of these at the time and that was enough to give us the storyline. So I started to get the lyrics: she slips out and leaves a note and the parents wake up, it was rather poignant. I like it as a song and when I showed it to John, he added the Greek chorus and long sustained notes. One of the nice things about the structure of the song is that it stays on those chords endlessly."
Veel later (in 2008 in the Guardian) zou betrokken "runaway" Melanie Coe, intussen directeur van een immobiliënkantoor zeggen: "London was a very different place in the '60s. I went to a club called the Bag O' Nails [Soho] and I met everybody. You sat on the next table to the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Hollies, because there weren't many clubs in London. I got in coz I was a cute little girl and I dressed in the latest fashions. I'd go to Mary Quant and Biba, sketch the dress and get my aunt to make my clothes. Ready Steady Go! loved that. They held open auditions. I was 13. It went on what you were wearing and how you danced. I was asked to come every week. I met the Beatles at Ready Steady Go! George was great to meet - I looked a lot like Pattie Boyd, who later became his wife, of course. I was always going out. I danced the night away and was a face in London. In those days, to be trendy everything had to be French. I bought the T-shirt of the moment, which was my star sign in French. I loved that T-shirt. One day I got home and my mother had cut it to ribbons. She wanted me to look like Princess Anne, not my idol, Marianne Faithfull.
When my parents found out I had the pill they grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and made me flush them down the toilet. I was 17 by then and ran away leaving a note, just like in the song. 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. I didn't realize for a long time that the song was about me.
Years later Paul was on a program talking about how he'd seen a newspaper article and been inspired by it. 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. That line, "She's leaving home after living alone for so many years" is so weird to me because that's why I left. I was so alone. How did Paul know that those were the feelings that drove me towards one-night stands with rock stars? I don't think he can have possibly realized that he'd met me when I was 13 on Ready Steady Go!, but when he saw the picture, something just clicked."