Within You, Without You

Within You Without You is a song written by George Harrison and released on The Beatles' 1967 album, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. It features only Harrison and a group of uncredited Indian musicians, although producer George Martin arranged the string section, and Harrison and assistant Neil Aspinall played the tambura. According to Prema Music, dilrubha player Amrit Gajjar played on the track. It is the second of Harrison's songs to be explicitly influenced by Indian classical music, after "Love You To", and Harrison's only composition on Sgt. Pepper. "Within You Without You" was written on a harmonium at the house of long-time Beatles friend Klaus Voormann, while "there were lots of joints being smoked".

The song, originally written as a 30-minute piece and trimmed down into a mini-version for the album, is in Mixolydian mode. The laughter at the end was Harrison's idea to lighten the mood and follow the theme of the album. Sped up to C#, an instrumental version at the original speed and key appears on the Anthology 2 album.

The song was also included on the 2006 remix album Love. For this album, George Harrison's lyrics and melody were mixed over the rhythm of "Tomorrow Never Knows". The blending of these two songs is considered the most effective form of mashup on the album. 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. The original version was also 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 by the lyrics that he had them carved on a stone monument in his yard.

Personnel

 * George Harrison – tambura, sitar, acoustic rhythm guitar (1962 Gibson J-160E), lead vocal
 * Session musicians – swarmandal, dilruba, tabla
 * Erich Gruenberg, Alan Loveday, Julien Gaillard, Paul Scherman, Ralph Elman, David Wolfsthal, Jack Rothstein Jack Greene – violin
 * Reginald Kilbey, Allen Ford, Peter Beavan – cello