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She's Leaving Home


Mike

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She's leaving home - Songfacts

In February 1967 McCartney read about Melanie Coe, a 17-year-old A-level schoolgirl from Stamford Hill, north London. She went missing without her car, cheque book and spare clothes. Her father was quoted as saying, "I cannot imagine why she should run away. She has everything here."

Coe briefly rented a flat in Paddington with a croupier she had met in a nightclub, and returned home around 10 days after the newspaper report was published.

McCartney wrote the music and the initial lyrics, which were later completed with John Lennon.

When she ran away from home in February 1967, Melanie was pregnant and feared a beating from her mother, a successful hairdresser in the East End, whose clientele included the mother of Ronnie and Reggie Kray.

In the Beatles song, Melanie leaves a note for her parents as she steals away in the early hours and meets "a man from the motor trade".

In reality, she left in the afternoon when her parents were out and went off not with the father of her unborn child but with a croupier.

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This is the picture that appeared in the newspaper in 1967

They spent a week together in Bayswater before her parents found her and took her back to the family's three-bedroom home in Stamford Hill. Later, she had an abortion.

"As a 17-year-old I had everything money could buy - diamonds, furs, a car - but my father and mother never once told me they loved me," Melanie has said.

Amazingly, McCartney's reading of her escape in the newspapers was not the first time he had come across her.

"I first met Paul when I was 13 on the pop show Ready Steady Go!

"He presented me with first prize for miming to Brenda Lee's Let's Jump The Broomstick, which meant I danced on the show for a year," says Melanie.

"We had spent a long day in the studio filming. John Lennon was aloof and unapproachable, Paul shook our hands but Ringo and George were sweethearts, chatting to us all day.

"Something probably clicked in Paul's mind when he read the story about me running away from home three years later, as it was pretty unusual back then."

A year after the song, Melanie was off again, marrying a Spaniard-with a lavish reception at the Dorchester hotel in London.

The newlyweds moved to the Bahamas but split 12 months later and Melanie headed for Los Angeles to pursue a dancing and acting career. She even dated actor Burt Ward, who played Robin in the Batman TV series.

"I've always been starstruck and followed my heart," says Melanie, who returned from America in 1981 to look after her dying mother.

Shortly afterwards she met Anthony Sharman, now 53, the man she has been with ever since and who helps run the estate agency with her. Together they have two children, Tabitha and Max, now 20 and 19.

Melanie's impulsive spirit surfaced again in 1997 when the couple decided to leave their cottage in Snape, Suffolk, and move to the laidback surfers' town of Tarifa, the most southerly point of Spain overlooking the Moroccan coast.

At first they rented a farmhouse in the hills, while Melanie traveled the world establishing an antiques business. Their children attended school on the beach.

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This is a picture of Melanie taken last year.

Melanie's first moment of fame, receiving a prize from Paul McCartney for miming to Brenda Lee on Ready Steady Go! in 1963

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These pictures are from the show.

*This is one of four songs The Beatles recorded where none of the band members played musical

instruments; the others are Eleanor Rigby, Good Night and The Inner Light.

*A common theme from songs John sang lead on for Sgt. Peppers was that they were lyrics from relatively common images they encountered (e.g. Cereal commercial for Good Morning, Good Morning / A Drawing of Julian’s for Lucy In The Skies With Diamonds / Circus poster for Being For The Benefit Of Mr. Kite / Newspaper Headlines for A day In A Life and She's Leaving Home).

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