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Most of the songs were conceived during a transcendental meditation course with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in Rishikesh, India in the spring of 1968.

The retreat had required long periods of meditation, initially conceived by the band as a spiritual respite from all worldly endeavours — a chance, in John Lennon's words, to " get away from everything.

" Both Lennon and Paul McCartney had quickly found themselves in songwriting mode, however, often meeting " clandestinely in the afternoons in each other's rooms " to review the new work.

" Regardless of what I was supposed to be doing ," Lennon would later recall, " I did write some of my best songs there.

" Close to forty new compositions had emerged in Rishikesh, twenty-three of which would be recorded in very rough form at Kinfauns, George Harrison's home in Esher, in May 1968.