Although 'Norwegian Wood' had
featured George on sitar, it had been as an afterthought.
'Love You To' was the first song written by George
specifically for the instrument as, by now, he was studying
seriously. On this recording, he also featured tabla player
Anil Bhagwat.
In his biography, I Me Mine, George
recollected that he had used tabla and sitar on the basic
track, overdubbing vocals and guitar at a later stage.
However Mark Lewisohn, author of The Complete Beatles
Recording Sessions, gained access to the original tapes and
discovered that the sitar didn't appear until the third take
and the tabla wasn't added until the sixth.
The song's recording title was
'Granny Smith' - after the apple variety - simply because
George couldn't come up with anything better. As the words
'love you to' don't appear in the song, the eventual title
is rather puzzling: perhaps: 'love me while you can' might
have been more appropriate as this sums up what the song is
saying.
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