"Within You Without You" (Harrison – January 4, 1967)
Sgt. Peppers… – Side 2, Track 1 (5:04)
YouTube (Patti Smith)
From Wikipedia, Rolling Stone and About.com –
Composition –
The basic tracks for "Within You Without You" featured only Harrison and a group of uncredited Indian musicians based in London. Producer George Martin then arranged a string section, and Harrison and assistant Neil Aspinall overdubbed the tambura. According to Prema Music, dilruba player Amrit Gajjar played on the track. Hunter Davies wrote that Harrison "trained himself to write down his song in Indian script so that the Indian musicians can play them." With "Within You Without You", Harrison became the second Beatle to record a song credited to The Beatles but featuring no other members of the group (Paul McCartney had previously done so with "Yesterday").
"Within You Without You" is the second of Harrison's songs to be explicitly influenced by Indian classical music (the first being "Love You To", released on Revolver the previous year). Harrison said "I was continually playing Indian [sitar exercises] called Sargam, 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 on unusual scales." The song is Harrison's only composition on Sgt. Pepper after "Only a Northern Song" was omitted from the album. Harrison wrote "Within You Without You" on a harmonium at the house of long-time Beatles' associate Klaus Voormann ("We were talking about the space between us all, And the people who hide themselves behind a wall of illusion— never glimpse the truth").
The lyrics are based almost explicitly on a dinner party conversation at Voorman's house, which combined current theories about LSD experimentation and the death of ego with Hindu mysticism and philosophy. The words are almost a verbatim report; the opening line of each of the three verses begins "We were talking...".
The song ends with a burst of laughter from the sound-effects vaults at Abbey Road, put there at George's instruction to lighten the preachiness of the track. Some listeners have erroneously taken this to be the other Beatles (who were not present at any of the "Within You" sessions) laughing at the song.
Harrison envisioned the song as a Western distillation of a traditional Indian raga, and wrote the song in three separate pieces, which he intended to record separately and then splice together. However, the final product was recorded in only two pieces, and only two takes.
Musical Structure –
The song is mostly in Mixolydian mode or rather Khamaj thaat, its equivalent in Indian music.
The song, in the tonic (I) key of C#, is structured around an exotic Mixolydian melody over a constant G# 'root-fifth' drone that is neither obviously major nor minor. It opens with a very short alap played by the tambouras (0:00-0:04), then dilruba (from 0:04) while aswarmandal is gently stroked to announce the pentatonic portion of the scale. A tabla then begins (at 0:23) playing a 16-beat tintalin a Madhya laya (medium tempo) and the dilruba plaintively backs the opening line of the verse (Bandish) or gat: "We were talking about the space between us all." The opening words "We were talking" are sung to an E-F-G-B♭ melody tritone interval (E to B♭) that enhances the spiritual dissonance sought to be evoked. Soon an 11-piece string section plays a series of unusual slides to match the Indian music idiom where the melody is often "played legato rounded in microtones, rather than staccato as in Western music." The instrumental after the second verse and chorus involves the tabla switching from the 16 beat tintal to a 10 beat jhaptalcycle. As a pointed counterpoint to the verse echoes of ancient Vedantic philosophy ("wall of illusion" "When you've seen beyond yourself, then you may find peace of mind is waiting there") a sawal-jawab (musical dialogue) begins in 5/4 time between first the dilruba and Harrison's sitar, then between the full Western string section and Harrison's sitar, this tellingly resolving into a melody in unison and together stating the tihai that closes the middle segment. Gould describes Martin's strings as here making "their way through the bustle and drone of the Indian instruments with the slightly shaky dignity of a procession of sahibs in sedan chairs." After this, the drone is again prominent and the swarmandal plays an ascending scale, followed by a lone cello in descending scale that leads to the final verse in 16-beat tintal ("And the time will come when you see we're all one, and life flows on within you and without you") ending with the notes of the dilruba left hanging, until the tonal and spiritual tension is relieved by a muted use of canned laughter.
Pollack considers that there two likely interpretations of the use of canned laughter. The first is that the presumably xenophobic Victorian/Edwardian-era audience implicit in the Sgt. Pepper band and concert concept "is letting off a little tension of this perceived confrontation with pagan elements." The second holds that the composer is engaging in "an endearingly sincere nanosecond of acknowledgement of the apparent existential absurdity of the son-of-a-Liverpudlian bus driver espousing such other-worldly beliefs and sentiments".
Recording –
Recording began on 15 March 1967 at Abbey Road studio 2 with Indian musicians from the Asian Music Circle, London,[13] sitting on a carpet with lights low and incense burning. On 3 April 1967 George Martin's score for eight violins and three celli was added, attempting to imitate the slides and bends of the dilrubas.[3] The recording released on the album was sped up enough to raise the key from C to C#; an instrumental version of the song at the original speed and in the original key appears on the Anthology 2 album.
Takes: 2
Personnel
George Harrison – Lead vocal, acoustic guitar,[18] tambura, sitar
Neil Aspinall – Tambura
Erich Gruenberg, Alan Loveday, Julien Gaillard, Paul Scherman, Ralph Elman, David Wolfsthal, Jack Rothstein, Jack Greene – Violin
Reginald Kilbey, Allen Ford, Peter Beavan – Cello
Unnamed Indian musicians – Swarmandal, dilruba, tabla, tambura
Trivia –
Modeled as it is after the droning style of Indian music, this is the only Beatles song that consists of one chord. It's also the only Beatles song which features George alone.
John Lennon has claimed that this is one of George's best compositions. For his part, Stephen Stills was so taken with the song's lyrics that he carved them in a stone monument placed in his front yard.
The original mono and stereo mixes, for some reason, use a different taped laugh at the end of this song.
The lyrics printed on the back of the Sgt. Pepper album align in such a way that the words "Without You" seem to bloom out of the back of Paul's dead. Paul Is Dead theorists take this as yet another "clue" that the band was soldiering on after Paul's "death."
Today in Beatles History (From The Internet Beatles Album): January 4 –
Sgt. Peppers… – Side 2, Track 1 (5:04)
YouTube (Patti Smith)
From Wikipedia, Rolling Stone and About.com –
Composition –
The basic tracks for "Within You Without You" featured only Harrison and a group of uncredited Indian musicians based in London. Producer George Martin then arranged a string section, and Harrison and assistant Neil Aspinall overdubbed the tambura. According to Prema Music, dilruba player Amrit Gajjar played on the track. Hunter Davies wrote that Harrison "trained himself to write down his song in Indian script so that the Indian musicians can play them." With "Within You Without You", Harrison became the second Beatle to record a song credited to The Beatles but featuring no other members of the group (Paul McCartney had previously done so with "Yesterday").
"Within You Without You" is the second of Harrison's songs to be explicitly influenced by Indian classical music (the first being "Love You To", released on Revolver the previous year). Harrison said "I was continually playing Indian [sitar exercises] called Sargam, 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 on unusual scales." The song is Harrison's only composition on Sgt. Pepper after "Only a Northern Song" was omitted from the album. Harrison wrote "Within You Without You" on a harmonium at the house of long-time Beatles' associate Klaus Voormann ("We were talking about the space between us all, And the people who hide themselves behind a wall of illusion— never glimpse the truth").
The lyrics are based almost explicitly on a dinner party conversation at Voorman's house, which combined current theories about LSD experimentation and the death of ego with Hindu mysticism and philosophy. The words are almost a verbatim report; the opening line of each of the three verses begins "We were talking...".
The song ends with a burst of laughter from the sound-effects vaults at Abbey Road, put there at George's instruction to lighten the preachiness of the track. Some listeners have erroneously taken this to be the other Beatles (who were not present at any of the "Within You" sessions) laughing at the song.
Harrison envisioned the song as a Western distillation of a traditional Indian raga, and wrote the song in three separate pieces, which he intended to record separately and then splice together. However, the final product was recorded in only two pieces, and only two takes.
Musical Structure –
The song is mostly in Mixolydian mode or rather Khamaj thaat, its equivalent in Indian music.
The song, in the tonic (I) key of C#, is structured around an exotic Mixolydian melody over a constant G# 'root-fifth' drone that is neither obviously major nor minor. It opens with a very short alap played by the tambouras (0:00-0:04), then dilruba (from 0:04) while aswarmandal is gently stroked to announce the pentatonic portion of the scale. A tabla then begins (at 0:23) playing a 16-beat tintalin a Madhya laya (medium tempo) and the dilruba plaintively backs the opening line of the verse (Bandish) or gat: "We were talking about the space between us all." The opening words "We were talking" are sung to an E-F-G-B♭ melody tritone interval (E to B♭) that enhances the spiritual dissonance sought to be evoked. Soon an 11-piece string section plays a series of unusual slides to match the Indian music idiom where the melody is often "played legato rounded in microtones, rather than staccato as in Western music." The instrumental after the second verse and chorus involves the tabla switching from the 16 beat tintal to a 10 beat jhaptalcycle. As a pointed counterpoint to the verse echoes of ancient Vedantic philosophy ("wall of illusion" "When you've seen beyond yourself, then you may find peace of mind is waiting there") a sawal-jawab (musical dialogue) begins in 5/4 time between first the dilruba and Harrison's sitar, then between the full Western string section and Harrison's sitar, this tellingly resolving into a melody in unison and together stating the tihai that closes the middle segment. Gould describes Martin's strings as here making "their way through the bustle and drone of the Indian instruments with the slightly shaky dignity of a procession of sahibs in sedan chairs." After this, the drone is again prominent and the swarmandal plays an ascending scale, followed by a lone cello in descending scale that leads to the final verse in 16-beat tintal ("And the time will come when you see we're all one, and life flows on within you and without you") ending with the notes of the dilruba left hanging, until the tonal and spiritual tension is relieved by a muted use of canned laughter.
Pollack considers that there two likely interpretations of the use of canned laughter. The first is that the presumably xenophobic Victorian/Edwardian-era audience implicit in the Sgt. Pepper band and concert concept "is letting off a little tension of this perceived confrontation with pagan elements." The second holds that the composer is engaging in "an endearingly sincere nanosecond of acknowledgement of the apparent existential absurdity of the son-of-a-Liverpudlian bus driver espousing such other-worldly beliefs and sentiments".
Recording –
Recording began on 15 March 1967 at Abbey Road studio 2 with Indian musicians from the Asian Music Circle, London,[13] sitting on a carpet with lights low and incense burning. On 3 April 1967 George Martin's score for eight violins and three celli was added, attempting to imitate the slides and bends of the dilrubas.[3] The recording released on the album was sped up enough to raise the key from C to C#; an instrumental version of the song at the original speed and in the original key appears on the Anthology 2 album.
Takes: 2
Personnel
George Harrison – Lead vocal, acoustic guitar,[18] tambura, sitar
Neil Aspinall – Tambura
Erich Gruenberg, Alan Loveday, Julien Gaillard, Paul Scherman, Ralph Elman, David Wolfsthal, Jack Rothstein, Jack Greene – Violin
Reginald Kilbey, Allen Ford, Peter Beavan – Cello
Unnamed Indian musicians – Swarmandal, dilruba, tabla, tambura
Trivia –
Modeled as it is after the droning style of Indian music, this is the only Beatles song that consists of one chord. It's also the only Beatles song which features George alone.
John Lennon has claimed that this is one of George's best compositions. For his part, Stephen Stills was so taken with the song's lyrics that he carved them in a stone monument placed in his front yard.
The original mono and stereo mixes, for some reason, use a different taped laugh at the end of this song.
The lyrics printed on the back of the Sgt. Pepper album align in such a way that the words "Without You" seem to bloom out of the back of Paul's dead. Paul Is Dead theorists take this as yet another "clue" that the band was soldiering on after Paul's "death."
Today in Beatles History (From The Internet Beatles Album): January 4 –
1962 – 'Mersey Beat' front page: 'Beatles Top Poll!'. Issue almost completely dedicated to the Beatles.
1964 – "With The Beatles" number 1, 5th week (UK Record Retailer chart).
– "Beatles Christmas Show", at the Astoria Cinema, Finsbury Park, London.
– Indifferent reaction of US critics after "The Jack Paar Show" transmision of a fragment of a Beatles concert.
– Indifferent reaction of US critics after "The Jack Paar Show" transmision of a fragment of a Beatles concert.
1965 – "Another Beatles Christmas Show" at the Hammersmith Odeon, London (two performances).
1966 – Brian flies to New York to negotiate the next tour.
1967 – Studio 2. 7.00pm-2.45am. Recording: "Penny Lane" (overdub onto take 7). Producer: George Martin; Engineer: Geoff Emerick; 2nd Engineer: Phil McDonald.
– The club Speakeasy opens at 48 Margaret Street, London.
– The club Speakeasy opens at 48 Margaret Street, London.
1970 – Studio 2. 2.30pm-4.00am. Recording: "Let It Be" (overdub onto take 27, tape reduction edit of take 27 into takes 28-30 with simultaneous overdub, overdub onto take 30). Stereo mixing: "Let It Be "(remixes 1, 2, from take 30). Producer: George Martin; Engineer: Phil McDonald; 2nd Engineer: Richard Langham.
– Recording of brasses and second guitar solo for "Let It Be" (included on the LP version).
– Last recording session of Paul, George and George Martin.
– Last recording session of the Beatles as a band.
– Last recording session of Paul, George and George Martin.
– Last recording session of the Beatles as a band.
1978 – Start of sessions for "London Town" at Abbey Road Studios (second period).
Photos from Google.
Photos from Google.
No comments:
Post a Comment