page_title: The Inner Light (song)
section_title: Bombay
hierarchical_section_title: The Inner Light (song) / Recording / Bombay
caption_attribution_description: English: Hariprasad Chaurasia is a master of the bansuri, the North Indian bamboo flute. Deutsch: Hariprasad Chaurasia ist ein Meister der Bansuri, der nordindischen Bambus Flöte.
context_page_description: "The Inner Light" is a song by the English rock group the Beatles, written by George Harrison. It was released on a non-album single in March 1968, as the B-side to "Lady Madonna". The song was the first Harrison composition to be issued on a Beatles single and reflects the band's embrace of Transcendental Meditation, which they were studying in India under Maharishi Mahesh Yogi at the time of the single's release. After "Love You To" and "Within You Without You", it was the last of Harrison's three songs from the Beatles era that demonstrate an overt Indian classical influence and are styled as Indian pieces. The lyrics are a rendering of a poem from the Taoist Tao Te Ching, which he set to music on the recommendation of Juan Mascaró, a Sanskrit scholar who had translated the passage in his 1958 book Lamps of Fire.
  Harrison recorded the instrumental track for "The Inner Light" in Bombay in January 1968, during the sessions for his Wonderwall Music soundtrack album. It is the only Beatles studio recording to be made outside Europe and introduced Indian instruments such as sarod, shehnai and pakhavaj to the band's sound.
context_section_description: Having used London-based Indian musicians from the Asian Music Circle on "Love You To" and "Within You Without You", Harrison recorded "The Inner Light" in India with some of the country's foremost contemporary classical players. In early January 1968, he travelled to HMV Studios in Bombay to record part of the score for Wonderwall, much of which would appear on his debut solo album, Wonderwall Music. The day after completing the soundtrack recordings, on 13 January, Harrison taped additional pieces for possible later use, one of which was the instrumental track for "The Inner Light". Five takes of the song were recorded on a two-track recorder.
  The musicians at the sessions were recruited by Shambhu Das, who had assisted in Harrison's sitar tuition on his previous visit to Bombay, in 1966, and Vijay Dubey, the head of A&R for HMV Records in India. The line-up on the track was Aashish Khan (sarod), Mahapurush Misra (pakhavaj), Hanuman Jadev (shehnai), Hariprasad Chaurasia (bansuri) and Rijram Desad (harmonium). In Lavezzoli's estimation, although these instruments are more commonly associated with the Hindustani discipline, the performers play them in a South Indian style, which adds to the Carnatic identity of the song. The recording features tabla tarang over the quiet, vocal interludes. Author Simon Leng refutes the presence of the oboe-like shehnai, however, saying that this part was played on an esraj, a bow-played string instrument. As with the Wonderwall selections recorded at HMV, Harrison directed the musicians but did not perform on the instrumental track.
caption: Hariprasad Chaurasia, shown playing the North Indian bamboo flute, known as the bansuri
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS Windows", "Image DateTime": "2008:11:23 15:40:41", "Image ExifOffset": "164", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "302", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "8506", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "500", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "500"}