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TL;DR:

  • George Harrison wrote The Beatles’ “Within You Without You.”
  • The Beatles’ producer, George Martin, was not a fan of the songs.
  • Martin said “Within You Without You” was inspired by an “obsession.”
George Harrison, writer of The Beatles' "Within You Without You," with a guitar
The Beatles’ George Harrison | GAB Archive/Redferns

The Beatles‘ producer, George Martin, was not a fan of every Beatles song. For example, he criticized The Beatles’ “Within You Without You.” Subsequently, the song’s writer, George Harrison, revealed his opinion of the tune.

George Martin said The Beatles’ ‘Within You Without You’ was inspired by George Harrison’s ‘obsession with Indian music’

The book The Beatles: Paperback Writer includes an interview with Martin from 1979. In it, he discussed the songs from Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

“George’s contribution, ‘Within You Without You,’ was, with all deference to George, a rather dreary song, heavily influenced by his obsession with Indian music at that time,” he said. “I worked very closely with him on the scoring of it, using a string orchestra, and he brought in some friends from the Indian Music Association to play special instruments.”

George Martin said songs from The Beatles’ ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’ worked together

Martin further explained how “Within You Without You” came together. “I was introduced to the dilruba, an Indian violin, in playing which a lot of sliding techniques are used,” he said. “This meant that in scoring for that track I had to make the string players play very much like Indian musicians, bending the notes, and with slurs between one note and the next.”

Martin noted “Within You Without You” appeared on the same album as “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” and “With a Little Help From My Friends.” “But even such widely differing songs as these two seemed to merge into the whole once they had become the ‘work’ of Sergeant Pepper himself, from that first moment on the record when you hear the tuning-up noises of the band and the atmosphere of an audience,” he said.

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George Harrison discussed what he thought about ‘Within You Without You’

George revealed what he thought about “Within You Without You.” According to a 1987 interview from Entertainment Weekly, George said he wasn’t a big fan of Sgt. Pepper, saying he couldn’t stand half of the tracks from the album. Despite this, he praised “Within You Without You” for being “really strange and unique,” as well as “A Day in the Life.” George was also happy to hear many listeners considered Sgt. Pepper the greatest album of all time.

The book George Harrison on George Harrison: Interviews and Encounters features an interview from 1992. In it, George discussed some of The Beatles’ songs that are inspired by Indian music, specifically “Love You To,” “Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown),” and “Within You Without You.” He said “Within You Without You” was the “big one.” He said his later album Wonderwall Music was supposed to be an anthology of Indian music.

Martin wasn’t a fan of “Within You Without You” but George was.

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