heard previously in popular music in the Left Banke's 1966 single "Pretty Ballerina". The song's melody oscillates over the chords of C major and C diminished, a chord favoured by Harrison in his Indian music-inspired compositions for the Beatles. Acknowledging Harrison's statement that the tune is "slightly Indian", Everett considers "Blue Jay Way" to be related to Kosalam and Multani – ragas from, respectively, the Carnatic and Hindustani traditions of Indian classical music. Alternatively, ethnomusicologist David Reck says the melody uses the scale from the Carnatic raga Ranjani, while according to author Simon Leng, Harrison based the song partly on the Hindustani Raga Marwa. Following the inclusion of a raga-style introduction (or alap) in his previous Indian compositions, "Love You To" and "Within You Without You", "Blue Jay Way" begins with a preview of the song's melody played softly, in free time, over the opening drone. Author Ian Inglis credits the song's incorporation of ambient drone, specifically its role in providing "an anchorage point for vocal and instrumental improvisation", as one of the first examples of a musical device that soon became prevalent in the work of Fairport Convention, the Incredible String Band and other folk artists. The length of the verses falls short of an even eight bars through the omission of a final beat. Pollack recognises this detail as reflecting a sense of impatience, in keeping with the circumstances surrounding the song's creation. Following the third verse–chorus combination, the outro comprises four rounds of the chorus, with the lyrics to the final round consisting of the repeated "Don't be long" refrain. As a feature that Pollack terms "compositionally impressive", each of the four sections in this outro varies in structure by being either shorter in length or less musically detailed. Lyrics The lyrics to "Blue Jay Way" relate entirely to Harrison's situation on that first night in Los Angeles. He refers to fighting off sleep and recalls his advice to Taylor to ask a policeman for directions to Blue Jay Way. Author Jonathan Gould views the song as "darkly funny", with the singer's concern over his friends' tardiness almost resembling "a metaphysical crisis". In the choruses, Harrison repeatedly urges "Please don't be long / Please don't you be very long", a refrain that Inglis identifies as central to the composition's "extraordinary sense of yearning and melancholy". Taylor later expressed amusement at how some commentators interpreted "don't be long"