"Something Inside That Was Always Denied, For So Many Years!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

                                     Yesterday, June 1, was also what I call "Sgt. Pepper Day." This was the day, 47 years before, the Beatles released what I still consideration their masterpiece "Sgt. Pepper's Lonelyhearts Club Band," with still the most striking cover in album history.

                                       So, each year, I play it on this date, to give it a listen, and treasure its brilliance.  I always, in anticipation of the brilliant piano arrangements on "A Day In The Life," manage to block out the song, "She's Leaving Home," which happens to be one of the most beautiful and sad songs ever composed.

                                         Melanie Coe, pictured above, is perhaps, next to Dorothy in the film version of "The Wizard Of Oz,' the most famous runaway in history. Back in 1967, her running away from home, and its subsequent newspaper coverage, inspired Paul McCartney to write "She's Leaving Home."

                                            For decades, the line "meeting a man from the motor trade" has been pondered over, with many interpreting the girl in question was going to have an abortion.  Paul McCartney has admitted that was not his intention. But, interestingly, as it turns out, the reason Melanie ran away then was because she actually was pregnant, and did want her parents to find out.  She ran off to meet with the child's father, her boyfriend, and, when things fell apart, she did return home, and had an abortion.  Which must have been a big deal at the time.

                                            In some ways, this song is a litmus test for adulthood.  If you hear it while young, you tend to see things only from the girl's perspective.  But, one day, as a young adult, I was listening to it, and when it got to the line, "She breaks down, and cries to her husband, 'Daddy, our baby's gone.," I began to feel so awful for this couple who had raised their daughter, and now this.  It was then I realized I was an adult--I could see this song from both points of view.  As I get older, I tend to see it more from the parents,' though I have no children, myself.

                                              Melanie has survived this time of her life, and is now, at 64, running a company of her own, somewhere in England.

                                                 I will think of Melanie next year, when I listen to "She's Leaving Home." It is nice I can actually put a face to that girl in the song!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!