Within You Without You

Within You Without You is a George Harrison composition, included in the album, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967). Lennon, McCartney and Starr do not appear on this track. George sings, plays the acoustic guitar, tambura and the sitar. Added to this is a group of Indian instrumentalists, together with a string section that plays an arrangement by George Martin. George composed the song on a harmonium. Perhaps because he had smoked a good deal of pot while working on the song, the finished piece was a half-hour long. The recorded version, coming in at five minutes, is really an ultra-light adaptation of George's original creation.

Within You Without You is in mixolydian (also known as locrian) mode. This is the note sequence one gets by playing from B to B on the white keys of a piano. This unusual scale gives the music an exotic, "eastern" feel and flair to a Western ear. The final mix was sped up and raised a half tone to C-sharp. (Anthology 2 contains an instrumental version in the original key and tempo.)

The lyrics also reflect India's spiritual influence over Harrison, as well as the use of drugs and the turbulence within the "counterculture." The album was released on June 1-2, 1967, at the beginning of the "Summer of Love," and this track appealed to that restless fan base. The title of the song comes from a line that refers to LSD trips. It reminds you that you are "only very small and life flows on within you and without you." The song ends with laughter, which some listeners have felt out of place, given the dour mood of the music. It was George's effort to make the track fit more comfortably within the overall upbeat theme of the Sgt. Pepper album.