Beatles Countdown #97 – Love You To
Feb 26
1960s george harrison, the beatles No Comments
After three McCartney songs, number 97 brings us George Harrison as a primary songwriter for the first & certainly not last time. From the album Revolver, I give you “Love You To!”
Revolver would prove to be Harrison’s first great stand with three songs of his appearing on it: “Taxman, I Want To Tell You,” and this. Hell, “Taxman” even got to open the album and certainly set the pace for the acclaimed recording. Their last album yielded two songs & the next would give Harrison just one song so this was surely his chance with the ball so he ran with it. There may have been better songs on the album, but Harrison definitley made a big mark on Revolver & people started seriously paying attention to the “Quiet Beatle.”
With the working title “Granny Smith” since Harrison was notoriously bad at naming his own songs, he set out to write a song for the sitar while still learning from Ravi Shankar, famed sitar virtuoso. The Beatles had previously used the sitar on the last album for “Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown),” but this would be their first (and again not last) forray into Indian classical music. Actually, it would be pop music’s first forray into it at all and easily one of the most successful. Actually, it would more be Harrison’s forray as none of the other Beatles played on the track. Okay, maybe Ringo did tamborines, but it’s been debated! Featuring all the elements of the classical Indian song, Harrison pieced together a very memorable song that had people actually liking a style they previously would have covered their ears from. How many songs can you name off your head that use a tabla in it anyway?
Lyrically, the song seems to be a smoldering love song for his new bride Pattie Boyd whom he married three months before composing the song. That aside, there a bunch of fun, quirky lyrics to find in here amidst the drones & cool riffs such as “I’ll make love to you if you want me to.” Damn Boyz II Men for stealing Harrison’s thunder thirty years later! It’s a way better fit as a comical one-liner in an Indian piece than a cheesy love song designed to have women’s panties drop at the first note. Bitterness aside, what Harrison created was a song that stood out from Revolver in an extremely positive way and showed Harrison had some ability as his own, even if Paul & John weren’t touching that style.
Song: Love You To
Album: Revolver
Year: 1966
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