Love You To

"Love You To"
Song by The Beatles from the album Revolver
Released	5 August 1966
Recorded	11 April 1966, EMI Studios, London
Genre	Raga rock, psychedelic rock
Length	3:01
Label	Parlophone
Writer	George Harrison
Producer	George Martin
Revolver track listing
14 tracks Side one "Taxman" "Eleanor Rigby" "I'm Only Sleeping" "Love You To" "Here, There and Everywhere" "Yellow Submarine" "She Said She Said" Side two "Good Day Sunshine" "And Your Bird Can Sing" "For No One" "Doctor Robert" "I Want to Tell You" "Got to Get You into My Life" "Tomorrow Never Knows"

"Love You To" is a song by The Beatles from the album Revolver. It is sung and written by George Harrison and features North Indian classical instrumentation; tabla, a pair of hand-drums, sitar and a tambura providing a drone. "Love You To" was the first Beatles' song that seriously attempted to incorporate Indian classical music and has even been hailed as the first pop song to emulate a non-western form in structure and instrumentation. As such, it first introduced Western pop music fans to the eastern, Indian music that Harrison would promote for the rest of his career.

Composition

As Harrison seldom had titles for his songs the working title was "Granny Smith." Lewisohn states that the first basic tracks of the song were set down in Abbey Road studio two on Monday 11 April 1966 in sessions between 2.30pm-7pm and 8pm-12.45am. They initially involved George singing to his own acoustic guitar accompaniment, with Paul supplying backing vocals. The sitar came in at take three and again as an overdub onto take six along with a tabla,bass and fuzz guitar. Lewisohn specifically states: "George played the sitar but an outside musician, Anil Bhagwat, was recruited to play the tabla."

Harrison had been practising the sitar since he used it to record Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown) in October 1965 (he was soon to do so from its leading exponent Ravi Shankar) and Lavezzoli writes that "His playing throughout the song is an astonishing improvement over Norwegian Wood. In fact Love You To remains the most accomplished performance on sitar by any rock musician.". The tabla player on the Song (Anil Bhagwat) made no mention of any other Indian musicians but stated: "A chap called Angardi called me and asked if I was free that evening to work 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 I'd be playing on a Beatles session. When I arrived at Abbey Road there were girls everywhere with Thermos flasks, cakes, sandwiches, 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."

Ringo Starr is the only other Beatle who plays on the song, contributing tambourine. Paul McCartney originally recorded backing vocals for the song but these were left out of the final mix. There have been various accounts of uncredited personnel from the North London Asian Music Centre who contributed. Macdonald makes an unreferenced claim that there was an "uncredited sitarist" on this track.

A brief portion of the song was included in the Beatles' animated film Yellow Submarine when Harrison's character is introduced.

Musical Structure

The Song is in the key of C and emulates North Indian Khyal music. Harrison begins by twice stroking his sitar's resonating strings (a common technique before the opening alap segment of a raga). In the alap section (lasting 35 seconds) the melody is previewed, before the tabla, tamboura and percussion commence a Madhya laya (medium tempo) Bandish or gat. Some critics consider that the lack of a clearly measured tempo in this overture "sets musical and, in this particular context, spiritual time adrift- until the tune kicks into gear and the singer observes that "Each day just goes so fast." The Song otherwise conforms to a basic I-flatVII sparse chord structure with 8-bar verse A sections and 12-bar B sections in an ABAB pattern. The "meditative harmonic coloring" provided by the tamboura drone complements the cynical worldview expressed in the lyric: "There's people standing round who screw you in the ground. They'll fill you in with all the things you see." The drut (fast tempo) gat doesn't begin till the very end of the song, pointedly as the vocals fade upon "I'll make love to you, if you want me to."

Personnel

• George Harrison – multi-tracked lead vocals, acoustic guitar - Gibson J-160E, electric guitar - Fender Stratocaster, double-tracked sitar, fuzz bass - Burns Nu-Sonic Bass
• Ringo Starr – tambourine
• Anil Bhagwat – tabla

Paul McCartney sang backing vocals in some takes, at a very low volume.

Cover versions

• Ronnie Montrose featured a cover version with his own vocals and an electric guitar solo on his Territory album in 1986.
• The Trypes, an offshoot of The Feelies, included a cover of the song on their 1984 EP, The Explorers Hold.
• In 2009, Jim James (as "Yim Yames"), frontman of the band My Morning Jacket, covered "Love You To" on his Tribute To EP.
• The song has also been covered by Bongwater, on their Box of Bongwater collection.
• In 2011, Solid Gold covered the song on the Minnesota Beatle Project, Vol. 3 compilation.

References

• "The Beatles - Love You to". The Beatles Online. 2010. http://www.thebeatlesonline.com/pages/beatles_loveyouto.htm. 
• Lavezzoli, Peter (2010). The Dawn of Indian Music in the West. 
• Lewisohn, Mark (1988). The Beatles Recording Sessions. New York: Harmony Books. ISBN 0-517-57066-1.