Love You To
"Love You To" is a song by the English rock band the Beatles from their 1966 album Revolver. The song was written and sung by George Harrison and features Indian instrumentation such as sitar and tabla. Following Harrison's introduction of the sitar on "Norwegian Wood " in 1965, it was the first Beatles song to fully reflect the influence of Indian classical music. The recording was made with minimal participation from Harrison's bandmates; instead, he created the track with tabla player Anil Bhagwat and other Indian musicians from the Asian Music Circle in London. The title references their first hit song; "Love Me Do".
The composition adheres to the pitches of the Indian equivalent of Dorian mode and emulates the khyal vocal tradition of Hindustani classical music. For musical inspiration, Harrison drew from the work of master sitarist Ravi Shankar, who became his sitar tutor shortly after the recording was completed. In its lyrical themes, "Love You To" is partly a love song to Harrison's wife, Pattie Boyd, while also incorporating philosophical concepts inspired by his experimentation with the hallucinogenic drug LSD. In the context of its release, the song served as one of the first examples of the Beatles expressing an ideology aligned with that of the emergent counterculture.
"Love You To" has been hailed by musicologists and critics as groundbreaking in its presentation of a non-Western musical form to rock audiences, particularly with regard to authenticity and avoidance of parody. Author Jonathan Gould describes the song's slow sitar introduction as "one of the most brazenly exotic acts of stylistic experimentation ever heard on a popular LP". Ronnie Montrose, Bongwater, Jim James and Cornershop are among the artists who have covered "Love You To".
Background and inspiration
On the 1965 album Rubber Soul, George Harrison had led the Beatles towards Indian classical music through his use of the Indian sitar on John Lennon's song "Norwegian Wood ", while his own composition "If I Needed Someone" reflected the genre's influence in its melody and suggestion of drone. He subsequently wrote "Love You To" as a way to showcase the sitar, and to feature the tabla, a pair of Indian hand drums, for the first time. Music critic Richie Unterberger describes the song as the Beatles' "first all-out excursion" in raga rock, a genre that author Nicholas Schaffner says was "launched" by Harrison's use of sitar on "Norwegian Wood".Harrison wrote "Love You To" in early 1966 while the Beatles were enjoying an unusually long period free of professional commitments, due to their inability to find a suitable film project. He used the available time to further explore his interest in Indian music and the sitar, which, journalist Maureen Cleave noted in a contemporary article, "has given new meaning to life". Available at . Aside from honeymooning in Barbados with his wife, English model Pattie Boyd, Harrison's activities included receiving sitar tuition from an Indian musician at the Asian Music Circle in north London, where he also attended music recitals, and seeing Indian sitarist Ravi Shankar perform at the Royal Festival Hall. As reflected in "Love You To", Harrison continued to immerse himself in recordings by Shankar, who, when the pair met in June 1966, would agree to take Harrison as his student. This meeting took place at the home of the AMC's founders, Ayana and Patricia Angadi, whose network of friends and visitors added to Harrison's self-education in new forms of art, culture and politics.
File:Granny smith and cross section.jpg|thumbnail|right|190px|The song's working title, "Granny Smith", referenced the same variety of apple that the Beatles later adopted for the logo of their company Apple Corps.
Typically of his songs over this period, Harrison was unable to commit to naming the new composition. At the start of the sessions for the Beatles' Revolver album, Geoff Emerick, the band's recording engineer, gave the song the working title of "Granny Smith", after the variety of apple. The song was partly inspired by Harrison's experimentation with the hallucinogenic drug LSD, which he credited as a catalyst for increased awareness and his interest in Eastern philosophical concepts. Author Ian MacDonald views the subject matter as "part philosophical" and "part love-song" to Boyd.
Composition
Musical form
"Love You To" is in the key of C and adheres to the pitches of Kafi thaat, the Indian equivalent of Dorian mode. The composition emulates the khyal vocal tradition of Hindustani classical music. Structurally, it comprises an opening alap; a gat section, which serves as the main portion of the song; and a short drut gat to close the piece.The alap consists of sitar played in free tempo, during which the song's melody is previewed in the style of an Indian raga. Described by Harrison biographer Simon Leng as "essentially an adaptation of a blues lick", the seven-note motif that closes the alap serves as a recurring motif during the ensuing gat. The change of metre following the alap marks the first such example in the Beatles' work; it would shortly be repeated in Lennon's composition "She Said She Said", which Harrison helped complete by joining together three separate pieces that Lennon had written.
The gat is set in madhya laya and features a driving rock rhythm accentuated by heavy tambura drone. This portion of the composition consists of eight-bar "A" sections and twelve-bar "B" sections, structured in an A-B-A-B pattern. The alap's lack of a distinct time signature is contrasted with a temporal reference in the lyrics to the opening verse: "Each day just goes so fast / I turn around, it's past". Throughout, the vocal line avoids the melodic embellishment typical of khyal, apart from the use of melisma over the last line in each of the A sections. In keeping with the minimal harmonic movement of Indian music, the composition's only deviation from its I chord of C is a series of implied VII chord changes, which occur in the B sections.
During the mid-song instrumental passage, the melody line of the sitar incorporates aspects of the alap, raising the melody previewed there by an octave. The song then returns to verses sung over the A and B sections, culminating in the line "I'll make love to you, if you want me to." The arrival of the drut gat follows Hindustani convention by ending the composition at an accelerated tempo, although the brevity of this segment marks a departure from the same tradition.
Lyrical interpretation
As with all of the songs written by Harrison or Lennon and recorded by the Beatles in 1966, the lyrics to "Love You To" marked a departure from the standard love-song themes that had defined the group's previous work. Harrison presents a worldview that variously reflects cynicism, sardonic humour and a degree of detachment with regard to personal relationships. According to music critic John Harris, the lines "There's people standing round / Who'll screw you in the ground / They'll fill you in with all the sins you'll see" serve as one of the first examples of the Beatles' ideology aligning with that of the emerging 1960s counterculture, by highlighting the division between traditional mores and an LSD-inspired perspective. Authors Russell Reising and Jim LeBlanc recognise this and other statements in "Love You To" as part of the Beatles' espousal of anti-materialism from 1966 onwards, a message that, inspired by the LSD experience, suggested a "psychedelic vision of society".Among other commentators discussing the lyrical themes, Mark Hertsgaard writes that Harrison's "response to the fleetingness of time was to affirm and celebrate life: 'make love all day long / make love singing songs'", while Robert Rodriguez describes "Love You To" as "a somewhat oblique expression of love directed toward his bride, along with larger concerns regarding mortality and purpose". In Ian Inglis' estimation, the lyrics "remind us that in a world of material dissatisfaction and moral disharmony, there is always the solace of sexual pleasure".
Recording
"Love You To" was the third track the Beatles recorded for Revolver, after "Tomorrow Never Knows" and "Got to Get You into My Life". Rodriguez comments that "Love You To" " explicit the Indian influence implicit throughout the entire album", as songs such as "Tomorrow Never Knows" and "Got to Get You into My Life", together with the non-album single tracks "Paperback Writer" and "Rain", all incorporate drone sounds or otherwise display the limited harmonic movement that typifies the genre. In a 1997 interview, Harrison said that the song's inclusion reflected the band's willingness to experiment during this period, adding: "We were listening to all sorts of things, Stockhausen, avant-garde music, whatever, and most of it made its way onto our records."The basic track for "Love You To" was taped in London at EMI Studios on 11 April 1966. According to Beatles historian Mark Lewisohn, Harrison initially sang and played acoustic guitar, accompanied by Paul McCartney on backing vocals. By the end of the first session that day, three takes of the song had been made, with Harrison introducing his sitar on the last of these takes. Work resumed at 8 pm, with the participation of Anil Bhagwat, a tabla player that Harrison had sourced through Patricia Angadi. Other outside contributors, also from the AMC, included musicians on tambura and sitar.
According to Inglis, "Love You To" is "defined" by the interplay between sitar and tabla. Bhagwat later recalled of his involvement: "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." After rehearsing the song together many times, Harrison and Bhagwat recorded the sitar and tabla parts onto the vocal and guitar performance taped earlier that day.
With take 6 selected as the best performance, a reduction mix was carried out on 13 April, freeing up space for more overdubs on the four-track tape. Harrison added another vocal part onto what was now referred to as take 7, and Ringo Starr played tambourine. McCartney contributed a high harmony vocal over the words "They'll fill you in with all their sins, you'll see", but this part was omitted from the final mix. Harrison also overdubbed fuzz-tone electric guitar, controlling the output via a volume pedal. Producer Tony Visconti has marvelled at the guitar sounds the Beatles introduced on Revolver, particularly Harrison's part on "Love You To", which he says "sounds like a chainsaw cutting down a tree in Vermont".
Credit for the main sitar part on "Love You To" has traditionally been the subject of debate among commentators. While MacDonald says that, rather than Harrison, it was the sitarist from the AMC who played this part, Rodriguez writes that "others point to single-minded diligence in mastering the instrument, as well as his study through private lessons, proximity to accomplished musicians, and close listening to pertinent records." In his official history of the Beatles' recording career, The Complete Beatles Recording Sessions, Lewisohn states: "George played the sitar but an outside musician, Anil Bhagwat, was recruited to play the tabla." Musicologist Walter Everett also identifies Harrison as the main sitar player on the recording, as does Peter Lavezzoli, author of The Dawn of Indian Music in the West. Leng comments that, as on "Norwegian Wood", Harrison "is still playing the sitar like a guitar player , using blues and rock 'n' roll bends rather than the intensely intricate Indian equivalents". Speaking to author Steve Turner, Bhagwat has dismissed the idea that the sitarist was not Harrison, saying: "I can tell you here and now – 100 percent it was George on sitar throughout."
Final mixing for the song took place on 21 June as the Beatles rushed to complete Revolver before beginning the first leg of their 1966 world tour. Harrison discussed "Love You To" with Shankar when the two musicians met that month, at a social event hosted by the Angadi family. Although he was unaware of the band's popularity and had yet to hear "Norwegian Wood", Shankar was impressed with Harrison's humility as the guitarist downplayed his sitar recordings with the Beatles as merely "experiments". Soon after this meeting, Shankar gave Harrison his first sitar lesson at Kinfauns, his and Boyd's home in Surrey, and later, with tablist Alla Rakha, performed a private recital there for Harrison, Lennon and Starr. Harrison subsequently recalled of his first lesson with Shankar: "I felt I wanted to walk out of my home that day and take a one-way ticket to Calcutta. I would even have left Pattie behind in that moment."