Within You Without You
| "Within You Without You" | |
|---|---|
| Song |
"Within You Without You" is a song written by George Harrison, released on The Beatles' 1967 album, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.
Composition
The basic tracks for "Within You Without You" featured only Harrison and a group of uncredited Indian musicians. 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.[1] Hunter Davies wrote that Harrison "trained himself to write down his song in Indian script so that the Indian musicians can play them."[2] 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 (music), 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." [3]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").[4]
Musical Structure
The song (originally written as a 30-minute piece, abbreviated for the album) is mostly in Mixolydian mode[5][6] or rather Khamaj thaat, its equivalent in Indian music.[7]The laughter at the end was Harrison's idea, placed at the end of the song in order to lighten the mood and follow the theme of the album. 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.
The song, in the tonic (I) key of C#, is structured around an exotic Mixolydian melody over a constant C 'root-fifth' drone that is neither obviously major nor minor.[8] The song opens with a very short alap played by the dilruba while a swarmandal is gently stroked.[9] A tabla then begins playing a 16-beat tintal in a Madhya laya (medium tempo) and the dilruba plaintively backs the opening line "We were talking about the space between us all." [10] 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.[11] 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."[12] The instrumental after the second verse and chorus involves the tabla switching from the 16 beat tintal to a 10 beat jhaptal cycle.[13] 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 jawab-sawal (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.[14] 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.[15]
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-wordly beliefs and sentiments".[16]
Love remix
The song was also included on the 2006 remix album Love. For this album, George Harrison's vocal and sitar parts were mixed over McCartney's bass and Ringo's drum parts from "Tomorrow Never Knows," although the opening lyric, "Turn off your mind...Relax and float downstream...It is not dying...it is not dying," come from "Tomorrow Never Knows," as does the set of reversed sound effects utilised in the mashup. During part of the second verse of the mashup version, the drums and bass of "Tomorrow Never Knows" are silenced, replaced by the tabla percussion parts of "Within You Without You." Also, Harrison's vocals are heard in the song's intended key of C major. The blending of these two songs is considered the most effective form of mashup on the album.[17] All of the music for Love was remixed and remastered by The Beatles' producer Sir George Martin and his son Giles. The Love remix is one of the songs in The Beatles: Rock Band.[18] The original version has also been released as downloadable content along with the rest of the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album in November 2009.
Stephen Stills was so impressed with the lyrics that he had them carved on a stone monument in his yard.[19] John Lennon declared "Within You Without You" "one of George's best songs."[20]
Personnel
- George Harrison – lead vocal, tambura, sitar, acoustic guitar[21]
- 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
Personnel per Ian MacDonald[21]
Cover versions
| Year | Artist | Release | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1967 | Peter Knight and his Orchestra | (single) | Orchestral version |
| 1988 | Sonic Youth | Sgt. Pepper Knew My Father | Originally released on a various artist's tribute album; re-released in 2007 on the deluxe edition of Daydream Nation |
| 1999 | Angels of Venice | Angels of Venice | Instrumental version |
| 2003 | Big Head Todd and the Monsters | Songs from the Material World: A Tribute to George Harrison | Various artists tribute album |
| 2004 | Thievery Corporation | The Outernational Sound | Instrumental version |
| 2007 | Oasis | Sgt. Pepper's 40th Anniversary Tribute | Originally aired for BBC Radio 2 on 2 June 2007 |
| 2007 | Glenn Mercer | Wheels in Motion | |
| 2007 | Les Fradkin | Guitar Revolution | Instrumental version |
| 2007 | Patti Smith | Twelve | |
| 2009 | Cheap Trick | Sgt. Pepper Live | |
| 2009 | Easy Star All-Stars | Easy Star's Lonely Hearts Dub Band | Featuring Matisyahu |
In 1996, Dead Can Dance released Spiritchaser that includes "Indus", a song with a melody very similar to "Within You Without You". After the similarity was discovered, they obtained Harrison's permission to use it and gave him partial songwriting credit after pressure from the record company.[22]
Notes
- ^ Prema Music 2010.
- ^ Gilliland 1969, show 45, track 4.
- ^ Walter Everett. The Beatles as Musicians. Revolver Through the Anthology. Oxford Uni Press. NY 1999 ISBN 139780195129410 p112
- ^ Walter Everett. The Beatles as Musicians. Revolver Through the Anthology. Oxford Uni Press. NY 1999 ISBN 139780195129410 p111
- ^ "Modes - iBreatheMusic Forums".
{{cite web}}:|access-date=requires|url=(help); Missing or empty|url=(help); Unknown parameter|http://www.ibreathemusic.com/forums/showthread.php?t=ignored (help) - ^ "Songs with only one chord". Retrieved 19 November 2011.
- ^ Walter Everett. The Beatles as Musicians. Revolver Through the Anthology. Oxford Uni Press. NY 1999 ISBN 139780195129410 p112
- ^ Pedler, Dominic (2003). The Songwriting Secrets of the Beatles. London: Omnibus Press. p. 262. ISBN 978-0-7119-8167-6.
- ^ Peter Lavezzoli. The Dawn of Indian Music in the West. Bhairavi. The Continuum International Publishing Group Inc. New York 2006. ISBN 0826418155 ISBN 978-08264181592006. p178
- ^ Peter Lavezzoli. The Dawn of Indian Music in the West. Bhairavi. The Continuum International Publishing Group Inc. New York 2006. ISBN 0826418155 ISBN 978-08264181592006. p178
- ^ Pedler, Dominic (2003). The Songwriting Secrets of the Beatles. London: Omnibus Press. p. 523. ISBN 978-0-7119-8167-6.
- ^ Peter Lavezzoli. The Dawn of Indian Music in the West. Bhairavi. The Continuum International Publishing Group Inc. New York 2006. ISBN 0826418155 ISBN 978-08264181592006. p178
- ^ Peter Lavezzoli. The Dawn of Indian Music in the West. Bhairavi. The Continuum International Publishing Group Inc. New York 2006. ISBN 0826418155 ISBN 978-08264181592006. p179
- ^ Peter Lavezzoli. The Dawn of Indian Music in the West. Bhairavi. The Continuum International Publishing Group Inc. New York 2006. ISBN 0826418155 ISBN 978-08264181592006. p179
- ^ Peter Lavezzoli. The Dawn of Indian Music in the West. Bhairavi. The Continuum International Publishing Group Inc. New York 2006. ISBN 0826418155 ISBN 978-08264181592006. p179
- ^ Alan W Pollack. 'Notes on Within You, Without You' (1998) http://www.recmusicbeatles.com/public/files/awp/wywy.html accessed 5 Jan 2012
- ^ PopMatters 2006.
- ^ Frushtick 2009.
- ^ Dowlding 1989, p. 175.
- ^ Sheff 2000, p. 186.
- ^ a b MacDonald 2005, p. 243.
- ^ Morse 1996.
References
- "Aina: Reflections". Prema Music. 2010. Retrieved 7 January 2010.
- "The Beatles: Love - PopMatters Music Review". PopMatters. 15 December 2006. Retrieved 27 December 2006.
- Dowlding, William J. (1989). Beatlesongs. New York: Simon and Schuster, Inc. ISBN 0-671-68229-6.
{{cite book}}: Invalid|ref=harv(help) - Frushtick, Russ (21 July 2009). "'The Beatles: Rock Band' Expands Its Song List". MTV.
{{cite news}}: Invalid|ref=harv(help) - Gilliland, John (1969). "Sergeant Pepper at the Summit: The very best of a very good year" (audio). Pop Chronicles. Digital.library.unt.edu.
{{cite web}}: Invalid|ref=harv(help) - MacDonald, Ian (2005). Revolution in the Head: The Beatles' Records and the Sixties. Chicago: Chicago Review Press. ISBN 978-1-55652-733-3.
{{cite book}}: Invalid|ref=harv(help) - Mann, William (29 May 1967). "The Beatles revive hopes of progress in pop music". The Times. London. Retrieved 14 July 2008.
{{cite news}}: Invalid|ref=harv(help) - Morse, Steve (12 July 1996). "Global Spirits: Dead Can Dance Make World Music Mystical". The Boston Globe.
{{cite news}}: Invalid|ref=harv(help) - Sheff, David (2000). All We Are Saying. St Martin's Griffin. ISBN 0-312-25464-4.
{{cite book}}: Invalid|ref=harv(help)
