The Beatles – Within You Without You | Musicians React & Analyze

[00:00:00]Hey guys, welcome to PQ, where we watch and talk about music as classical musicians. Today's video is from Jess, one of our supporters on Buy Me a Coffee. We want to thank you for your support and your suggestion. He suggested Within You Without You by The Beatles. Before getting into this song, we want to remind you that we have a playlist on a lot of The Beatles songs that we listened to. We can look it here for you guys.

[00:00:24]I am pretty sure we listened to a few songs of this album, but we have no idea about this one. I really like the title [music] and I know that George Harrison um did this song and like he wrote this song and I also heard that he's the only Beatle member that is in this song, but I'm not sure.

[00:00:47]But if the song was interesting and we liked it, I'm going to research that a little bit more, but we'll see how it goes. Let's just go get it started.

[00:01:23]>> [music] >> We were talking about the space between >> [music] >> us all and the people who hide themselves >> [music] >> behind a wall of illusion.

[00:01:53]Never glimpsed [music] the truth.

[00:01:58]Then it's hard to love when they pass [music] away.

[00:02:09]>> It's just me here to just digest what [laughter] we heard.

[00:02:12]>> Wow.

[00:02:14]>> [gasps] >> Oh my god. That was so cool. It's the coolest thing. I mean, I do we heard some songs with sitar, if you remember, not just also from Beatles, from Rolling Stones, I believe. And then and then Beatles also like we know that they had like a Indian inspired era in their song. But this is like on a different level, I feel like, because it was to me it was not just about the sitar, the presence of sitar. First of all, it was the main instrument, but also like the melodies that he was singing at, it was it didn't feel like a Western melody. It really felt like as if like an in it I I don't know the exact how to like explain it in the in the best way possible, but maybe you can. Like the melodies that he was going on, it really felt like Indian melodies or like deep from the Indian classical music, not just okay, I'm going to going to use the sitar and then we're going to do our own melody and harmony. It didn't sound Western.

[00:03:18]>> Yeah, exactly. I know what you mean, because whenever somebody I mean, we heard even in on this channel a lot of songs with the influence of Eastern music, either like Middle Eastern, Arabic or also Indian, like so many Indian influence in the music, but it's all like they take a part of it or some aspects of it and then they use it. So it feels like a mixture or hears like a mixture, like fusion or something, but this was straight up Indian music. And the funny thing is that I think I I even heard this, at least the beginning of it, before, but I always thought it's an Indian music that is really famous. I never thought that it's from The Beatles or something. It's It's so funny because yeah, it's really It's not just an influence. It's exactly and also it's not just the instruments. It's completely the melodies, the way that even they are say he was singing completely Indian music. So crazy.

[00:04:28]>> I don't know what's going to happen.

[00:04:29]Maybe like it gets a little more like a mix of both, but let's see.

[00:04:34]>> Yeah.

[00:04:36]>> [music] [music] [music and singing] [music] [music] [music] [singing] [music] [music] >> Try to realize [music and singing] it's all within yourself. No one [music] else can make you change.

[00:05:42]And [music] to see you're really only very small and life goes on. flowed on within you >> [music] >> and without you.

[00:06:00]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> We were talking about [singing] >> [music] >> the love that's gone so cold and the >> [music] >> people who gain >> [music] >> the world and lose their soul.

[00:07:41]They don't know why.

[00:07:44]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] [singing] [music] [music] [singing] [music] >> Wow.

[00:08:40]It's crazy. I love how I love the I don't know if if I can call it sense of humor of the Beatles or like really like uh they are like nobody can stop us. Why not when we want to uh because I will talk about the lyrics, but they were they were like when we want to uh sing something mystical and something like that is coming mostly I think from the Eastern philosophy.

[00:09:12]Uh why don't why would we just use some of the instrument from them? Why don't we just uh like make an Indian music instead of just using some aspect. And I think uh the only Western uh part of the song was that you were singing it in English.

[00:09:36]>> [laughter] >> That was the only Western part from the song because the philosophy behind the lyrics, the lyrics, every um the the complete the complete the music was Indian and also like Eastern. And also I've I think in the beginning and also towards the end there was a harp which I mean the composers use it when they want to show the Eastern or or or make a make a music about East Eastern. Also in classical music is like that.

[00:10:19]Um but the I think one of the only instrument that was like more like Eastern, I guess. I I I'm not sure. I mean I I I know that there are similar instruments. Yeah. Yeah, instruments also in in East. But like it's I think at least I know it more from the classical Western classical music. So also that was one of the only Western aspects, but it was like the Western aspect the Western instrument that is used for to show like Eastern atmosphere.

[00:10:54]>> Wow. Okay, I'm looking at the instrumentation.

[00:10:57]Uh it's a sitar obviously that played for George George Harrison which is also like even more impressive. Tabla which we heard. And uh there is the that drone sound that we heard that was like carrying out like which I was going to talk about which was really really cool and because it was adding a sense of to me like this music that did not have the traditional harmonic language that you get like a to attention, you build up to attention and then you resolve it.

[00:11:28]It really felt like it's just going on and going on and kind of like unfolding as you go, not necessarily grounding you with the harmony, like at least the Western harmony that our brain I mean, we're not necessarily Western people, but because we trained in that system, I think our also ear is used to like that kind of like build up and tension and release. But, um that So, it was interesting that there was not a lot of that going on. But, then that kind of drone the continuous pedal note or like the continuous note going on, it really felt like a grounding point [music] to me for the song. That was like, "Okay, we are here. We're still here."

[00:12:09]It felt like, "Okay, just just we're not getting too far because this is this is kind of like the not the tonic, but it's like our grounding point, our home." And then it kind of also like carried that through all the way to the end. So, we have that and then we have Dilruba Dilruba, which also is a Persian word Dilruba. But, that's a boat instrument.

[00:12:30]Uh and then there's another harp-like instrument that you said. And then there's Western Western strings. [music] Three three cellos and eight violins.

[00:12:39]>> That's I heard also.

[00:12:40]>> Uh so, they bring But, the the the approach of what they were playing wasn't that that's why I didn't say it, but it wasn't Western. It was exactly like the the way the sound production and the notes and the way that the traditional like Indian or like Eastern [music] like cellos >> Interesting. Yeah, and an acoustic guitar, harmonium. Yeah. But, like the it was interesting that first of all, there's just so many instruments, but the whole thing really sounded so well blended together. Like aside from that tabla, which was obvious, and aside from the sitar and that drone, I could not single out any of these >> [music] >> instruments. I think they were like the ensemble of it was very well blended together as like one, which is very interesting because it kind of like like related to the lyrics a little bit.

[00:13:35]Toward the end, he was talking about the all could be one, which again it reminded me of the song that we recently [music] listened from George Harrison while my guitar gently weeps. The theme were kind of similar. I don't know if he wrote them during the same time or not. [music] But the theme of the lyric was all about like just like loving and then being one with all the humanity. It's kind of like that. I know it had different We can look at the lyrics as well. Yeah, exactly about the harmony. I mean the all their music or the traditional music in every country, even in in Western countries or Western music, was more modal and more horizontally looking [music] than like the harmonies that came even in the classical music like at the end of Baroque era maybe [music] like and then so that you you look vertically and then you you you make big chords and stuff. You see it also in in Persian traditional music more even like the traditional Persian music, not not the classical Persian music. It is all like like you have a horizontal layers which like the drone and the the the sitar, the tabla which each of them are like a complete line and you can hear them alone and then they they just play together and they don't think that okay, [music] when in at this moment that we are playing this is the the sitar or the drone or or the this and that are making a chord or they are matching together or not. It's just like I mean there there is also some very vertically rules for that that you have to see if that it doesn't sound bad, but it's mostly the horizontal way of seeing it. And as we said the lyrics was really uh mystical or a philosophical um kind of thinking that is have been for for decades. Maybe I I know it maybe more from the east, but I I think maybe there are some philosophers also from the west that they develop this philoso- philosophy.

[00:16:09]Uh but it's more like a eastern thing that you can also see it in the in the art even in like I know it like more more Persian art that it's like [music] um in architecture or uh from in the paintings that they they like they they have a small motif, but this motif is the is the a really small part of a whole. It's really a mystical thing. They used so much broken mirrors like small broken mirrors in the architecture in in Persian architecture that it it also has a like mystical uh meaning behind it. This thinking of individuality that you on your own are the whole and this I think they call it humanism or humanism in in art history.

[00:17:05]It's in the back of my mind. It's it's more like a western philosophy or western kind of art. It and it started more from the Renaissance era to to think that uh one human and you could you can also see from this era like Leonardo da Vinci or so many other people that they were so talented that they could like do everything or know everything. They were like I don't know doctor and at the same time painter and the same time they and this feeling and this thinking of I'm individual I'm an I may I have an individual character and this individualism is more like a western thing and the in the east you're it's more like you're just a small piece of thing in this whole world and you're part of this whole you're part of a whole and this it's um they don't do many maneuvers in this individuality and the interesting thing is that the way that he was singing it that was more like monotone and really like like it's it was like a really straight line and also the the kind of voice quality that he was using it's it's was really also echoed this meditative and so this kind of whole mystical atmosphere also it's was matching with the drone note that we were singing it was like they were both the same and they were both like one one thing but he was just singing it and saying the words among this like drone note and then the drone really does that instrument was [music] really playing the note but his singing for me was also this had this feeling of like this pedal note that we were uh, hearing also the whole time during the song.

[00:19:14]>> Yeah, I think we're going to wrap this video here because you pointed out so many good things, so I don't want to like overdo them and then just like >> I know.

[00:19:22]>> retell them.

[00:19:23]>> I always do.

[00:19:24]>> [laughter] >> You talked about everything, but it was definitely very, very unique experience listening to Beatles and encountering with that, but we definitely enjoyed it so much. So, we want to thank you, Jess, for suggesting this very interesting and very unique song, and we want to thank you guys for following us along. We hope you guys enjoyed this video as well.

[00:19:45]Don't forget to like it, subscribe to our channel if you haven't already. If you want to support us more, there's a buy me a coffee link in the description.

[00:19:52]We'll see you guys tomorrow in our next video. Bye.

[00:19:54]>> Bye.