Within You Without You

George Harrison's interest in the sitar had begun by chance on the set of the group's 1965 film Help! when he became fascinated by the Indian instruments in a restaurant scene.  After George purchased a sitar for himself and began noodling around on it, John Lennon felt confident enough in George's ability by the end of that year to ask him to play it on the song Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown).  As every lead guitar player in the world then rushed out to get a sitar, George sought out his first formal instruction, and by mid-1966, he wrote an Indian-flavored composition called Love You To for the album Revolver.  He was not able to play all of the intricate part he desired on that track, however, and he had some session musicians brought in for authenticity, though only tabla player Anil Bhagwat received credit in the liner notes.

In late '66, Geoge finally began studying with master of the sitar Ravi Shankar, and immersed himself in Indian culture and religion, as well.  Upon his return to the Beatles, he admits that he only half-heartedly committed to the Sgt. Pepper project.  This is quite evident in his first composition presented at those sessions, a lightweight piece called Only a Northern Song, whose lyrics pretty much sum up his attitude at that time.  The song was rejected for Sgt. Pepper and later surfaced as part of the soundtrack for the Yellow Submarine animated film.

So, what would Harrison's contribution to the album-in-progress be?  The answer came at a dinner party at the home of old Hamburg friend Klaus Voorman.  An evening of discussing the state of the world led to George sitting at a harmonium in the house of Klaus and working out a tune, then starting to add some lyrics beginning with the phrase "We were talking..."  Fans and critics over the years who have described the lyrics as preachy never realized that they grew naturally out of some of the actual conversations from that gathering of friends.

The music was something else.  George had the tune, which was vaguely Indian, but for the backing, he set out to create a hybrid of sorts - a true meeting of Eastern and Western musical styles.  The other Beatles could not help him, not even Paul with his innate musical ability.  George first had to recruit some Indian players to provide the overall backing track, then he had to teach them the unusual straddling of musical styles that he wanted them to play.  This was all done on March 15th, 1967.  After many hours of rehearsal, the musicians nailed their part in a single take, as can be heard on the 50th anniversary editions of Sgt. Pepper.  A tamboura establishes the drone, over which a tabla and a swaramandala play, as a dilruba provides the melody.  On March 22nd, two additional dilruba parts were overdubbed.

The final day of the Sgt. Pepper recording sessions took place on April 3rd, and it proved to be a very complex one.  The other three Beatles had been around to witness some of the earlier work on Within You Without You, but only George was present on this day.  Producer George Martin had written a score for violins and cellos to complement the Indian instrumentation and complete the East meets West conceit of the piece.  Martin often chided himself in later years for shortchanging many of Harrison's compositions, but his collaboration with George in this instance is superb.  He had to learn to write the music in a sliding, swooping manner to match the dilruba, then convince the Western musicians to play it as he had arranged it.  Not only did he succeed in doing so on this night, but Martin continued to use this style in the coming year on his work for the soundtrack of the animated film Yellow Submarine.

Once the session musicians had completed their work, George proceeded to not only add his sitar part, but to finally sing his lead vocal, as well.  One other addition to the piece occurred at the mixing stage on April 4th, when George suggested a brief burst of laughter be placed at the end of the song to lighten the mood before the next number on the album, which turned out to be When I'm Sixty-four, providing the most striking contrast in styles possible.

George Martin's eventual pride in what they had accomplished resulted in the release of a special version of the song on Anthology 2 in the 1990's.  George Harrison's vocal is omitted, and we are allowed to hear the complicated arrangement in (almost) all of its glory.  The violins and cellos do not appear until the instrumental break in this version, which by the way is the longest instrumental break on any recording by the Beatles.

When sequencing the album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, Martin decided that the only logical place for Within You Without You was as the opening track of side two.  While Harrison certainly went on to write greater compositions such as While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Here Comes the Sun and Something, I believe that this unique creation of Eastern and Western musical styles could serve as his magnum opus, in much the same way that A Day in the Life (a song on which he only plays maracas) serves as the magnum opus of the Lennon/McCartney collaboration.