My Sweet Lord

Writing and recording

The recording of the song took place in London. Preston was the principal musician while Harrison was engineering the sessions.

Single release

Entering the British charts in the first week at number seven and then hitting the summit for five weeks, it was the first single by an ex-Beatle to reach number one. It did so again in the UK when reissued in January 2002 after Harrison's death from cancer. It reached number one on the US Billboard Hot 100 on 26 December 1970, remaining on top for four weeks.

In Britain, the original single was officially a double-A Side with "What Is Life". In the US it was a double-A-side with "Isn't It A Pity"- with both sides featuring a full Apple label.

The song has also appeared on The Concert for Bangla Desh (1971), The Best of George Harrison (1976), Live in Japan (1992), and (2009).

Legal controversy

Harrison claimed in a BBC interview with Annie Nightingale that the Judge in the case said that he liked Harrison's version of "My Sweet Lord" less.

The Chiffons would later record "My Sweet Lord" to capitalise on the publicity generated by the lawsuit. Country singer Jody Miller recorded a country chart top-five cover of "He's So Fine", which plays on the two songs' similarities by featuring the same guitar breaks played on the Harrison recording.

Shortly after the trial in 1976, Harrison wrote and recorded a song about the court case titled "This Song", which includes "This tune has nothing 'Bright' about it." "I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)" and "Rescue Me" are also mentioned in the song.

Harrison stated in his autobiography that he wasn't conciously aware of the similarity when he wrote the song and was inspired to write "My Sweet Lord" by the Edwin Hawkins Singers' version of "Oh Happy Day". In a 1980 interview with Playboy magazine, John Lennon expressed his doubt of the notion of "subconscious" plagiarism: "He must have known, you know. He's smarter than that. It's irrelevant, actually—only on a monetary level does it matter. He could have changed a couple of bars in that song and nobody could ever have touched him, but he just let it go and paid the price. Maybe he thought God would just sort of let him off."

Hindu prayers

This prayer consists of part of the principal mantra of devotees of the Gaudiya Vaisnavite faith, popularised in the Western world by the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), colloquially known as the 'Hare Krishnas'. Harrison was a devotee of this religious path.

The mantra in full is "Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna, Krishna, Hare, Hare, Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama, Rama, Hare, Hare."

This prayer is chanted by Hindu devotees prior to beginning any action, after hymns to Ganesha and Sarasvati. The prayer is dedicated to the spiritual teacher of the devotee which is equated with the Hindu Trimurti Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva (Maheshvara) and with the Supreme Cosmic Spirit or Absolute Reality (Brahman). The prayer is the first verse of the Guru stotram, a fourteen verse hymn dedicated to the spiritual teacher.

During his live performances of "My Sweet Lord", Harrison has tried to engage his audience into the practice of "chanting the holy names of the Lord" (kirtan):

}}

Various Christian fundamentalist anti-rock activists have objected to the chanting of 'Hare Krishna' in the song as anti-Christian or satanic while some born-again Christians appear to have adopted the song as an anthem.

Chart positions

Notes

External links

Category:1970 singles Category:2002 singles Category:George Harrison songs Category:Nina Simone songs Category:Apple Records singles Category:Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles Category:Number-one singles in Australia Category:Number-one singles in Germany Category:Irish Singles Chart number-one singles Category:Number-one singles in New Zealand Category:Number-one singles in Norway Category:Number-one singles in Switzerland Category:UK Singles Chart number-one singles Category:Oricon International Singles Chart number-one singles Category:Songs produced by Phil Spector Category:Plagiarism controversies Category:Songs written by George Harrison Category:Rock ballads

This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.