The real life Eleanor Rigby passed away on this day. She is buried in a churchyard in Liverpool, yards away from where John Lennon and Paul McCartney met for the first time. While the two met there, Paul (who primarily wrote the song) denies ever seeing the gravestone and in earlier versions of the song, the female character had a different name.

The Daily Mail ran an article that shed light on the real life Eleanor Rigby back in 2008:

“And so it was that at the cruelly young age of 44, Eleanor died in the same house where she had been born, was interred in the graveyard of St Peter’s Church, and had her name added prominently on an increasingly crowded headstone.

Precisely one year later, John Lennon was born, going on to play out much of his childhood against the background of that same church.

His schoolboy band, the Quarrymen, would cut their teeth at the church fete, and Paul McCartney would join him to sunbathe in the graveyard.”

-dailymail.co.uk