The Beatles, “Within You Without You” from Sgt. Pepper’s (1967): Deep Beatles
It became the track that many listeners skipped on Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. Indeed, the Beatles’ “Within You Without You” challenged fans with its Indian instrumentation, at that point quite foreign to Western ears. Yet the track has transformed into one of the album’s more intriguing songs, its philosophical lyrics and intricate lead vocal showcasing George Harrison’s astonishingly rapid development as an accomplished singer and songwriter.
Composed on a harmonium after a dinner party hosted by Klaus Voormann, “Within You Without You” represents Harrison’s second full venture into Indian music, the first being “Love You To” from Revolver. In his autobiography I Me Mine, Harrison explained that the tune came first, then the line “we were talking…”
Recording took place on March 15, 1967, with no other Beatles present other than George Harrison. Under the direction of George Martin and engineer Geoff Emerick, Harrison and Indian musicians playing such instruments as the sitar, dilruba, tambura, tabla and svarmandal recorded the basic backing track. According to Mark Lewisohn’s The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions, the musicians were uncredited but came from the Asian Music Circle in north London.
As Emerick told Lewisohn, the recording marked a turning point in capturing the tabla on tape. “The tabla had never been recorded the way we did it. Everyone was amazed when they first head a tabla recorded that closely, with the texture and the lovely low resonances,” Emerick explained.
By: Kit O'Toole
Source: Something Else Reviews
