ABSTRACT
Young people became increasingly concerned with the politics of consciousness – 'love, loneliness, depersonalisation, the search for the truth of the person'. Allied to a belief that popular music/rock could establish and articulate a particular location for self-identity, the mid-1960s witnessed a heady mixture of evangelical seriousness. 'Eleanor Rigby' is arguably one of the most famous of all Beatles' songs, and the first on which the group made no instrumental contribution. Tethered by an austere string arrangement by George Martin and with an acute sense of observation which resonates with both pathos and social realism, the song invokes both a nostalgic and monochromatic portrait of loneliness. While 'Eleanor Rigby' inhabits the black and white wasteland of spinsterhood, the pastel hues of 'Here, There and Everywhere' offer an altogether different portrait of love. Overall there is a sense of austerity and restraint and this is equally evident in George Martin's string arrangement.
