Paul McCartney has maintained that he invented the name Eleanor Rigby for the song “Eleanor Rigby” and that there was no real Eleanor Rigby who inspired him, but whether he thinks it influenced him or not, a grave bearing that name does exist in a churchyard near where he and John Lennon met in Liverpool. Now, the rights to that gravesite are up for sale, meaning some big creep can literally entomb themselves in Beatles history. That comes from The Guardian, which says that rights to the grace space will be sold alongside a miniature family bible from 1899 with the name Eleanor Rigby written inside and the original handwritten score to the Beatles song. Both of those are simply material artifacts, though, and they won’t give you the eternal satisfaction of rolling into heaven and telling St. Peter that you got buried in the coolest spot.
As for how and why this is a thing, The Guardian explains that the law usually gives people or families an “exclusive right of burial” for a period of 99 years when they buy a specific grave space, with Eleanor Rigby’s grandmother apparently purchasing the spot in 1915. However, nobody new can be buried in that same spot until they buy the rights and wait until 75 years have passed since the last person was buried in it. According to the records, the last person placed in this grave was buried in 1949, so as The Guardian says, “whoever buys the deeds could be buried alongside the Rigby family in seven years’ time.”
If that doesn’t sound horribly ghoulish to you, the gravesite is being auctioned off in September and it’s expected go for somewhere around $3,000.