Within You Without You

The record is one of the few Beatles lyrics to deal with death ('When they pass away'), set against the motifs of social commentary and philosophy, something they had already used on 'Run for Your Life' 2 years earlier. It uses antithesis ('Within you and without you'). The title is sung in the chorus, and the writing takes after eastern philosophy and the drug culture. The language is more poem than lyric and richer in vocabulary than most.

'Within You Without You' is a raga rock and psychedelic piece that borrows from Indian music and classical music (western string arrangement), and it is written in C♯ major. Strip out a bass guitar and drums and what is left is a melisma, the last of the 7 songs to do so, one syllable sung across several notes (hindustani-style melodic ornamentation on long syllables). It is furnished with Indian instruments, something the Beatles had already used on 'Strawberry Fields Forever' four months earlier. Partway through, the meter shifts, 4/4 (tintal) verses & chorus shift to 5/4 in instrumental break. Then, the song is unusual here, in that it is built without verses and choruses. Listen for call and response, one voice asking and the rest answering (Jawab-sawal between dilruba/sitar and violins in instrumental break). The outro departs from the rest of the song, where Harrison overdubbed laughter at the end to break the spiritual tension - a deliberate self-deprecating gesture.

Cut over three sessions, Harrison and the Indian musicians taped the basic track at Studio 2 on March 15, 1967. Strings and additional dilruba/sitar overdubs added March 22 in Studio 1. Harrison's lead vocal and the closing laughter overdub were recorded April 3. Tape was sped up roughly a semitone (composed in C, plays in C♯). Part of it was taped in EMI Studio 1, one of only fifteen Beatles records to use that room. Harrison played the Gibson J-160E on it, his guitar. It was made with close mic'ing, first heard 4 years earlier, on 'I Saw Her Standing There'. It ends on a fade-out. This was their 131st record, and the 10th of the 25 they recorded in 1967.

This is one of only 8 records with only one Beatle on it, Harrison on dilruba and swarmandal, among them 'Good Night' and 'Yesterday'. It is Harrison's, words and voice, and Neil Aspinall, road manager from 1961 and later head of Apple, takes tamboura on this one. Aspinall is also on 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band' and 'Magical Mystery Tour'. The tabla on this one is a tintal (16-beat) and jhaptal (10-beat) cycles, and the violin here is an eight-piece string section, 8 violins.

The public first heard it when Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band appeared on May 26, 1967. This song was the 10th of the 24 records the Beatles released in that year, and the 128th in the order they were recorded.