within you without you, the only non-lennon/mccartney song on sgt peppers. a thread:

-‘within you without you’ was recorded on the 15th of march 1967 by george harrison. he finished recording early the following month. it was george's second composition in the indian classical style, after “love you to”.

-george began writing ‘within you without you’ on a pedal harmonium at klaus voormans home in 1967 and the song was labelled ‘untitled’ at the time of recording. george later said that “[he] also spent a lot of time with ravi shankar, trying to figure out how to sit and hold the-

sitar, and how to play it. ‘within you without you’ was a song that [he] wrote based upon a piece of music of ravi’s that he’d recorded for all-india radio. it was a very long piece – maybe 30 or 40 minutes – and was written in different parts, with a progression in each.-

[george] wrote a mini version of it, using sounds similar to those [he] discovered in his piece. [he] recorded in three segments and spliced them together later”.

george's immediate inspiration for the song came from a conversation he shared with voorman about the metaphysical space that “prevents individuals from recognising the natural forces uniting the world”. following this discussion, he worked out the song's melody and came up with-

the opening line “we were talking about the space between us all”.

-within you without you was put as the opening track on side two of the LP so that it’d be the first song you’d heard when you flipped the album which was a big deal.

-the laughter at the end of the track was george’s idea. originally, some listeners thought it was the sound of the other beatles mocking his songwriting effort, but in fact, it was meant to lighten the mood after five minutes of “sad, almost mournful, music”

-"some thought it a masterpiece, some a prime example of mock-philosophical babble. Either way, it was pure harrison." - barry miles

may be biased because george is my favourite beatle, but it’s my all time favourite beatles song (hence my @ )

so now that you know more, stream within you without you!! appreciate it in all its glory https://open.spotify.com/track/3Umg8CDhO8dOSj7yBTInYb?si=BeyKbFftTU6ljagfdt476w