The Inner Light (song) - Composition and Lyrics

Composition and Lyrics

In his autobiography I, Me, Mine, Harrison writes that the song was inspired by a letter from Juan Mascaró, a Sanskrit scholar at Cambridge University, who sent him a copy of his book Lamps of Fire (a wide-ranging anthology of religious writings, including some from the Tao Te Ching) and asked him if "... might it not be interesting to put into your music a few words of Tao, for example number 48, page 66 of the book." Harrison states: "In the original poem, the verse says 'Without going out of my door, I can know the ways of heaven.' And so to prevent any misinterpretations — and also to make the song a bit longer — I did repeat that as a second verse but made it: "Without going out of your door/You can know all things on earth/ Without looking out of your window/ You can know the ways of heaven" — so that it included everybody". The passage Harrison refers to, however, corresponds to what English translations normally number as "47", rather than "48". D. C. Lau's translation of the Tao Te Ching 47, for example, states: "Without stirring abroad/One can know the whole world;/Without looking out of the window/One can see the way of heaven."