“She’s Leaving Home,” the sixth track on The Beatles‘ era-defining Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, is a unique Beatles track in a number of ways. It is one of the few Beatles tracks where no member of the band played an instrument – “Eleanor Rigby” is the most famous example – it is one of the few Beatles songs to feature only two members of the band singing, and its famous string arrangement was not arranged by producer George Martin (who is responsible for the orchestral arrangements on most Beatles songs). It’s a fully narrative song, which is not something they did very often, and the Greek chorus sung by Lennon and McCartney is basically unique in the band’s oeuvre. Also, it has the most prominent harp part maybe in the history of popular music.
The Staves are a folk duo of English sisters, Jessica and and Camilla Stavely-Taylor. Formerly a trio, they have appeared on this site a few times performing stripped-down, harmony rich covers. As a trio, their covers often featured close harmonies with little instrumentation. As a duo, it seems not much has changed. (The third sister, Emily, has departed to be a full-time parent.)
For their latest cover, they’re applying their approach to one of The Beatles’ lushest songs, with just the two sisters’ voices and an acoustic guitar in place of the double string quartet, bass and harp. The two sisters alternate the lines, unlike the original on which McCartney sings all the lead vocals. They take turns wordlessly singing some of the string parts and they alternate on the Greek chorus as well. The two harmonize on parts of the lead vocal which is absent from the original song. The alternating vocal parts gives the performance a lot more drama than you might think given the sparseness of the arrangement.
The song works just as well without the busy harp or the large string section and no studio effects. (McCartney’s voice was double-tracked.) The sisters show the strength all along was the vocal melody and the story. Check it out below:
