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Love You To

George Harrison: Vocals, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, sitar
Paul McCartney: Vocals
Ringo Starr: Tambourine

Anil Bhagwat: Tabla
Uncredited Indian Musicians: Sitar, tamboura

Recorded April 11, 13 1966.

Available on:
Revolver

George Harrison made his sitar debut on Lennon's Norwegian Wood from 1965's Rubber Soul. He took lessons from the Indian master Ravi Shankar, and practiced several hours a day between 1965 and 1968.

Love You To was Harrison's first thoroughly Indian composition, and it was later followed by Sgt Pepper's Within You Without You and The Inner Light. The song proves that Harrison understood the structure of Indian music even at this early stage.

It starts with an unmetered improvised instrumental introduction (also called alap), followed by a vocal melodi with plenty of melisma (changing the note (pitch) of a syllable of text while it is being sung), and finally another a new and quicker instrumental section, a so-called fast gat.

Love Me To also showed that young Harrion had matured lyrically. He is reflecting on life in a philosophical way with lines such as;

"Each day goes so fast, I turn around, it's past" and "A lifetime is so short, a new one can't be bought."

The Indian sitar is an extremely demanding instrument to master, and by the time Love You To was recorded in 1966, Harrison was still a beginner. He therefore hired musicians from North London Asian Music Centre to help out on the recording. Unfortunately, these muscians were not credited on the record, with the exeption of tabla player Anil Bhagwat.

"The session came out of the blue," recalls Anil in Mark Lewisohn's book The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions.

"A chap called Angrardi called me and asked if I was free that evening to play with George. I didn't know who he meant - he didn't say it was Harrison. It was only when a Rolls-Royce came to pick me up that I realised that I'd be playing on a Beatles session. When I arrived at Abbey Road there were girls everywhere with Thermos flasks, cakes, sandwitches, waiting for the Beatles to come out.

"George told me what he wanted and I tuned the tabla with him. He suggested I play something in the Ravi Shankar style, 16-beats, though he agreed that I should improvise. Indian music is all improvisation. I was very lucky, they put my name on the record sleeve. I'm really proud of that, they were the greatest ever and my name is on the sleeve. It was one of the most exciting times of my life."

Love You To was originally called Granny Smith (after the apple), but fortunately Harrison changed the title before Revolver was printed.

Love You To