Within You Without You

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Within You Without You
The Beatles
publication June 1, 1967
length 5 min 5 s
Genre (s) Indian classical music , raga - rock
Author (s) Harrison
album Sgt.Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

Within You Without You ( English within yourself, outside of yourself ) is a song by The Beatles , which in 1967 as the eighth track on the LP Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was released. It's the first track on the second side of the record. The title was composed by George Harrison . It was the second Harrison composition after Love You To (1966) to be influenced by Indian classical music .

Recordings

The recordings took place on March 15 and 22 and on April 4, 1967 at Abbey Road Studios . Harrison was the only Beatle involved in the recording of this piece. The Indian instruments sitar , dilruba , swarmandal , tabla and tanpura were played by musicians from the London Asian Music Center. During the final recordings on April 4, 1967, a string ensemble consisting of eight violins and three cellos was added. The arrangement was made by George Martin . Harrison feared the song might be taken too seriously. To loosen up the atmosphere, he added a roar of laughter at the end.

Harrison had contributed the composition Only a Northern Song to this phase of the Sgt.-Pepper project , which had already been recorded on February 13-14, 1967. The title was generally rejected and only appeared in a revised version on the LP Yellow Submarine in 1969 . Inspired by a long conversation about the meaning of life with his friend Klaus Voormann and by his interest in Indian philosophy, he put his focus on the draft of a meditative litany with an unusual sound.

Harrison recalled the making of the song in his autobiography "I, Me, Mine":

“The song was written at Klaus Voormann's house in Hampstead, London, one night after dinner. I was playing a pedal harmonium in the house when the song came to me. The tune came first, then the first sentence ... we were talking ... I finished the words later.

This was during the Sgt. Pepper period, and after I had been taking sitar lessons with Ravi Shankar for some time, so I was getting a bit better on the instrument. I was continually playing Indian music lessons the melodies of which are called Sargamsm, which are the bases of the different Ragas. That's why around this time I couldn't help writing tunes like this which were based upon unusual scales. "

- George Harrison, I, Me, Mine, 1980, p. 112.

literature

  • George Harrison: I, Me, Mine . Guildford: Genesis Press, 1980.
  • Mark Lewisohn: The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions. London: Hamlyn, 1988.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Mark Lewisohn : The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions . London, Hamlyn, 2004, ISBN 0-681-03189-1 . Pp. 102, 104 and 107.
  2. ^ Mark Lewisohn : The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions . London, Hamlyn, 2004, ISBN 0-681-03189-1 . P. 97.