Women named in Beatles songs?

Lennon and McCartney frequently named women in song titles - some real, some disguised, several invented.

George steered clear of naming and/or shaming/celebrating the notoriously long list of his sexual partners. 

John Lennon tried a generic shoutout to an idealized Girl and later claimed he was foreshadowing the arrival of the future Ms Lennon-Ono. (Though you were married to me at the time. Just saying! Cyn)

Named in the title

  • Prudence (Farrow)
  • Michelle (ma belle) 
  • The Ballad of John & Yoko (Oh no! Yoko!)
  • Eleanor Rigby (Help star Eleanor Bron)
  • Polythene Pam - though she looks like a man.
  • Lovely Rita & Sexy Sadie
  • Julia - A cry from the heart to John's mother.
Plus Madonna — if we may call you that, your. ladyship.

Close but no cigar

Lucy came from Julian’s imagination and was strictly speaking a minor. Is Maggie Mae an interlude or a song? Trad the creator of her, anyway. Alex Alexander wrote Anna — he got two hits out of moaning about his girlfriend/wife/ex.

The muse for Martha My Dear was Paul and Jane’s sheepdog. No direct shout-out for Ms. Asher herself, only finger-pointing in We Can Work It Out. (Thanks for that, Paul — and for mentioning the dog and Eleanor Bron but NOT ME!! Jane x).

The Mother Mary who came to Paul was his own late mother,  Mary McCartney. Note, however, that there is no comma, making it sound like a religious incantation. 

Paul was baptized a Catholic, and while his Catholicism has always been nominal, his mother was devout. Was the McCartney subconscious also reaching out to the Madonna (again)?

Notable absentees

There are no direct mentions for other big-hitting women in Beatleworld: Cynthia, Mimi (John wouldn’t dare), Maureen, Linda, or Pattie. 

Or have I missed them? Please correct in comments, though preferably not in all-caps.

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