Apparently 'Within You Without You' on Pepper was cut down from an original take of around 30 minutes, anyone know where we can get hold of this or whether it has a title to search for somewhere?
Apparently 'Within You Without You' on Pepper was cut down from an original take of around 30 minutes, anyone know where we can get hold of this or whether it has a title to search for somewhere?
According to this site:
"Although Harrison claimed that the song was recorded in three parts and later edited together, it was in fact taped as one, initially lasting six minutes and 25 seconds."
http://www.beatlesbible.com/songs/wi...u-without-you/
That link also says:
"I'd 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 I 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. I wrote a mini version of it, using sounds similar to those I'd discovered in his piece. I recorded in three segments and spliced them together later."
This is the song the OP is asking about. I found some documentaries of Ravi playing for All-India Radio on YouTube but I have no idea if they are based on this song:
Ravi Shankar
Interesting. Any idea what evidence the author of the quote is basing this info on? He's contradicting Harrison's own explanation of his own song, which is very bold... and begs the question why Harrison would have lied.
Very interesting. Well, fancy helping to find Ravi Shankar's All-India Radio inspiration for WYWY ? It would be a brilliant find, imagine what a remix of that could sound like!
Last edited by Mixalopoulos; 02-10-2013 at 11:54 PM.
I'm guessing that the author used something like this book as a reference: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...rding_Sessions
This is a log of the Abbey Road studio sessions used for the Beatles albums. Harrison could have made an early demo of the song somewhere other than Abbey Road prior to the official recording.
Ah yes that might explain it. We do know for a fact he first composed it at a dinner party in Hampstead, which might have involved a jamming session. If he then recorded a long demo version, it would be magic to get hold of it. We also know he recorded WYWY with a group of unknown Indian musicians in Finchly, and some of those out-takes may indeed have been very long, such is the nature of sitar music. Again, someone's got the tape...