I grew up listening to The Beatles and have heard this song, Love You To, most of my life. While I was growing up, my parents would point out the distinct cultural influences that were present in the different albums we listened to. They have very eclectic taste in music and made sure to expose us to different types of music. We would sometimes listen to Ravi Shankar, a master on the sitar, and so when they played Love You To from Revolver, they talked to us about how in this song, you could hear the influence of the traditional Indian style more. When I first heard that we were covering South Asia and Indian Hindustani music, The Beatles were the first group to come to mind and this is one of their most obvious songs that is a hybrid of their own sound and the Indian music that they were exposed to just before making the album.
At the start you can hear the sitar and tabla being played in the introduction and this has a very traditional sound and melody. It lays the foundation for the more Beatle-like lyrics that are laid on top. The use of these instruments really shows the influence of Indian classical music on The Beatles at that time.
George Harrison was the writer of the two songs. He was heavily influenced by Ravi Shankar; they then worked together on other pieces of music.
Love You To is my song choice because I feel as though it has an unmistakable presence of the instruments in the introduction and they also carry through the rest of the song very strongly, especially with their use of drone and, as we mentioned in class, the almost twangy feel comes through very clearly.
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