Remember When: The Beatles Introduced the Distinctly Indian Sitar to the Pop-Rock World in 1965

You can praise The Beatles for a lot of reasons. High on that list should be the fact that they refused to settle on strategies that worked for them in early successes. Instead, they kept pushing the musical boundaries and incorporating new approaches, forcing the rest of the music world to follow their lead.

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The Fab Four’s usage of instrumentation and musical theory borrowed from music of Eastern cultures expanded the parameters of pop music. And it all began in 1965 with a sitar part on a folk song titled “Norwegian Wood”.

Lennon’s Confession

If you’re looking for a demarcation line between the young, cuddly moptops and the more mature, experimental Beatles, Rubber Soul, released in 1965, is the album for you. The arrangements became a bit denser, the musical twists more surprising, and the lyrics more piercing and profound.

John Lennon came to the sessions with a song that he started, and Paul McCartney helped him finish, called “Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)”. The song’s cadence and confessional openness owed a great debt to Bob Dylan’s work. Married at the time to his first wife Cynthia, Lennon openly hinted in the song at an extramarital one-night stand.

When it came time to do it in the studio, Lennon felt that the song came off as a bit unadorned if just played in a normal acoustic folk-type setting. He asked if there was anything that could be added to liven it up a little. George Harrison had just the thing.

By George

Even though he was the youngest of all The Beatles, Harrison’s mind was questing for new experiences and philosophies at perhaps the fastest pace within the group. And that included the search for new musical horizons. Indian music stood at the top of that list for him. Even before the making of Rubber Soul, Harrison had become fascinated with the characteristics of it that set it apart from Western music.

Harrison had first seen the guitar-like Indian instrument known as the sitar while filming a scene in The Beatles movie Help!. Wanting to explore it more, he bought one at a British shop that catered to all things India. Although the sitar he purchased wasn’t of the best quality, he nonetheless brought it to the Rubber Soul sessions.

When The Beatles recorded “Norwegian Wood” in October 1965, Harrison suggested a sitar part to Lennon. As can be heard on The Beatles Anthology 2 version of the song, the part was almost much more prominent. In the finished version, Harrison mostly just plays the main melody of the verse a few times, including at the start of the song.

Setting the Trend

Harrison wasn’t yet that skilled on the instrument, which is why the sitar part is somewhat minimal. But audiences hearing it on Rubber Soul were intrigued by this strange new sound adorning a song by the Fab Four.

In a short time, sitars began popping up all over the place in rock and pop songs. Meanwhile, Harrison began a much deeper dive into Indian music. Songs like “Within You Without You” and “The Inner Light” by The Beatles show his deep immersion in the music.

“Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)” started that whole progression. It’s one of the first examples of The Beatles thinking outside the box and outside their own geographical region.

Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images