In my opinion, is clear that Eleanor Rigby lyrics were mostly Paul’s work. In fact, Paul was kind of pissed off with John´s exaggerated claim, that in a private conversation on 1981 ( published in Hunter Davies’s 1985 version of his book) said to Hunter Davies: “I saw somewhere that he says (John) he helped on Eleanor Rigby. Yeah. About half a line. He also forgot completely that I wrote the tune for In My Life. That was my tune. But perhaps he just made a mistake on that.”. Shotton comment doesn’t prove that Lennon didn’t contribute something to the last verse, but what does really proves it’s that John´s contribution to the lyrics was pretty much inferior to Paul´s, and nearer to Ringo´s and George’s, which both contributed a line or two. We have to consider others witnesses and other facts that makes Paul´s version nearer to the truth than John´s: -First we have to take in consideration that Lennon comment “Paul wrote the first verse and the rest is basically mine” seems to be definitely false. Not only Shotton confirmed that Lennon´s help in the writing of most of the Eleanor Rigby lyrics was nil, John changed his actual contribution (as he did with other many songs) and “increased” his credit to Eleanor Rigby with every interview after The Beatles break up, which is not a very good sign. When Lennon revised an early manuscript of Hunter Davies book The Beatles in 1968, he objected a lot things, but not that Davies referred many times to Eleanor Rigby as a McCartney song with almost no input from John. -If McCartney already had the verse about “Father McCartney writing the sermon that no one will hear...” like Shotton remembers, he clearly had more than the first verse. - To shout “That is it”, like Lennon did, meanwhile you hear two other people working and writing the lines (Paul and George), is not really a big contribution. -Neil Aspinall, one of the hypothetic witnesses of the writing of Eleanor´s Rigby’s last verse described this song in one of his columns of Beatle Monthly as a “Paul´s ballad”, and not mentioned any help of Lennon´s. I think Neil would have mentioned Lennon’s hypothetical “big lyric contribution” to the last verse or the lyrics in general, if he had really watched poor Lennon finishing the lyrics ALONE ( something which to me sounds very strange knowing about Paul´s control freak personality and his famous and hated “I have to do everything” attitude ). Not to mention that Lennon “vivid” comment about the writing of the last verse is very ambiguous and contradictory: “Actually, he meant for me to do it, but he wouldn’t ask…and, of course, there isn’t a line of theirs in the song, because I finally went off to a room with Paul and we finished the song…. so I wrote it with them sitting at that table, thinking, ‘How dare he throw it out in the air like that”. Jaaaaa, I mean so What is the real story? So he finished the lyrics with Paul or not? So if he wrote it with Paul, why he is talking like he did the entire job? In fact, in a 1966 interview, Paul said he finished the song with John TOGETHER: We sat around, laughing, got stoned and finished it off. It all sort of flowed from there.” What is seems to be truth, was that the last verse was writing in studio. What is not, it was writing only by Lennon . In fact, sounds very suspicious his claim, when you take in consideration it was John whom dismissed strongly Shotton’s idea about how to end song (idea which finally was choosen , I think, by Paul to end the song ). George Martin believed more in Paul’s version, and actually remembered Neil, Mal and himself making suggestions to Paul, and ironically not John. This taken from George Martin 1971 interview with the Melody Maker: There seems to be some dispute about how "Eleanor Rigby" was created. Do you remember it taking shape? MARTIN: Not the song, but I do remember the recording taking place. I had assumed that it was all Paul ... in fact I do remember, actually at the recording Paul was missing a FEW lyrics, and wanting them, and going round asking people "What can we put in here?" and Neil and Mal and I were coming up with suggestions. Rather petty, really ... everyone contributed things occasionally. In my opinion, Lennon (even if he in 1971 dismissed Martin´s comment and claimed that he wrote at least the 50% percent of the lyrics of the song) used Martin story to create a more detailed theory for his Playboy Interview (even if not less contradictory, well like I say before, he mentioned that he finished the song with Paul, but at the same time he claimed he finished it alone). The poet Williams Borrough also remembers Paul´s working in both melody and lyrics in a studio in Montague Square, : From the book Many years from now: Paul recorded most of the demo versions of 'Eleanor Rigby' at the experimental recording studio that he had set up in Marylebone. One of the people who heard the song in all its different stages was William Burroughs, who admired how much narrative Paul was able to pack into just a few lines. William Borroughs: I saw him there several times. The three of us talked about the possibilities of the tape recorder. He'd just come in and work on his 'Eleanor Rigby'. Ian recorded his rehearsals so I saw the song taking shape. Once again, not knowing much about music, I could see he knew what he was doing. He was very pleasant and prepossessing. Nice-looking young man, fairly hardworking. In my opinion, after analyzing all the facts, there’s no doubt about it, though Lennon threw in a couple words, the lyrics of Eleanor Rigby were mostly Paul´s. I think Barry Miles theory ““It seems as though John backed himself into a corner and couldn’t find a way to save face, because a less likely John Lennon composition would be hard to find” is right.