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My Sweet Lord

May 19, 2023

This article is about the song. For other uses, see My Sweet Lord (disambiguation).

"My Sweet Lord" is a song by English musician George Harrison, released in November 1970 on his triple album All Things Must Pass. It was also released as a single, Harrison's first as a solo artist, and topped charts worldwide; it was the biggest-selling single of 1971 in the UK. In America and Britain, the song was the first number-one single by an ex-Beatle. Harrison originally gave the song to his fellow Apple Records artist Billy Preston to record; this version, which Harrison co-produced, appeared on Preston's Encouraging Words album in September 1970.

"My Sweet Lord"
Original UK and US cover
Single by George Harrison
from the album All Things Must Pass
A-side"Isn't It a Pity" (US)
(double A-side)
B-side"What Is Life" (UK)
Released23 November 1970 (US)
15 January 1971 (UK)
GenreFolk rock, gospel, pop[1]
Length4:39
LabelApple
Songwriter(s)George Harrison
Producer(s)George Harrison, Phil Spector
George Harrison singles chronology
"My Sweet Lord"
(1970) 		"What Is Life"
(1971)
George Harrison singles chronology
"Cheer Down"
(1989) 		"My Sweet Lord"
(2002) 		"Stuck Inside a Cloud"
(2002)
Alternative cover
2002 reissue cover

Harrison wrote "My Sweet Lord" in praise of the Hindu god Krishna,[2] while intending the lyrics as a call to abandon religious sectarianism through his blending of the Hebrew word hallelujah with chants of "Hare Krishna" and Vedic prayer.[3] The recording features producer Phil Spector's Wall of Sound treatment and heralded the arrival of Harrison's slide guitar technique, which one biographer described as "musically as distinctive a signature as the mark of Zorro".[4] Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton, Gary Brooker, Bobby Whitlock and members of the group Badfinger are among the other musicians on the recording.

Later in the 1970s, "My Sweet Lord" was at the centre of a heavily publicised copyright infringement suit due to its alleged similarity to the Ronnie Mack song "He's So Fine", a 1963 hit for the New York girl group the Chiffons. In 1976, Harrison was found to have subconsciously plagiarised the song, a verdict that had repercussions throughout the music industry. Rather than the Chiffons song, he said he used the out-of-copyright Christian hymn "Oh Happy Day" as his inspiration for the melody.

Harrison performed "My Sweet Lord" at the Concert for Bangladesh in August 1971, and it remains the most popular composition from his post-Beatles career. He reworked it as "My Sweet Lord (2000)" for inclusion as a bonus track on the 30th anniversary reissue of All Things Must Pass. Many artists have covered the song, most notably Edwin Starr, Johnny Mathis and Nina Simone. "My Sweet Lord" was ranked 454th on Rolling Stone's list of "the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time" in 2004 and 460th in the 2010 update and number 270 on a similar list published by the NME in 2014. It reached number one in Britain again when re-released in January 2002, two months after Harrison's death.

Background and inspiration

George Harrison began writing "My Sweet Lord" in December 1969, when he, Billy Preston and Eric Clapton were in Copenhagen, Denmark,[4][5] as guest artists on Delaney & Bonnie's European tour.[6][7] By this time, Harrison had already written the gospel-influenced "Hear Me Lord" and, with Preston, the African-American spiritual "Sing One for the Lord".[8] He had also produced two religious-themed hit singles on the Beatles' Apple record label: Preston's "That's the Way God Planned It" and Radha Krishna Temple (London)'s "Hare Krishna Mantra".[6][9] The latter was a musical adaptation of the 5000-year-old Vaishnava Hindu mantra, performed by members of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), colloquially known as "the Hare Krishna movement".[10][11] Harrison now wanted to fuse the messages of the Christian and Gaudiya Vaishnava faiths[12] into what musical biographer Simon Leng terms "gospel incantation with a Vedic chant".[5]

The Copenhagen stopover marked the end of the Delaney & Bonnie tour, with a three-night residency at the Falkoner Theatre on 10–12 December.[13] According to Harrison's 1976 court testimony, "My Sweet Lord" was conceived while the band members were attending a backstage press conference and he had ducked out to an upstairs room at the theatre.[14] Harrison recalled vamping chords on guitar and alternating between sung phrases of "hallelujah" and "Hare Krishna".[15][16] He later took the idea to the others, and the chorus vocals were developed further.[14]

Band leader Delaney Bramlett's later version of events is that the idea originated from Harrison asking him how to go about writing a genuine gospel song,[7] and that Bramlett demonstrated by scat singing the words "Oh my Lord" while wife Bonnie and singer Rita Coolidge added gospel "hallelujah"s in reply.[17] Music journalist John Harris has questioned the accuracy of Bramlett's account, however, comparing it to a fisherman's "It was this big"–type bragging story.[7] Preston recalled that "My Sweet Lord" came about through Harrison asking him about writing gospel songs during the tour. Preston said he played some chords on a backstage piano and the Bramletts began singing "Oh my Lord" and "Hallelujah". According to Preston: "George took it from there and wrote the verses. It was very impromptu. We never thought it would be a hit."[18]

Using as his inspiration the Edwin Hawkins Singers' rendition of an eighteenth-century Christian hymn, "Oh Happy Day",[4][19] Harrison continued working on the theme.[20] He completed the song, with help from Preston, once they had returned to London.[15][16]

Composition

The lyrics of "My Sweet Lord" reflect Harrison's often-stated desire for a direct relationship with God, expressed in simple words that all believers could affirm, regardless of their religion.[21][22] He later attributed the song's message to Swami Vivekananda,[23] particularly the latter's teaching: "If there's a God, we must see him. And if there is a soul, we must perceive it."[24] Author Ian Inglis observes a degree of "understandable" impatience in the first verse's line "Really want to see you, Lord, but it takes so long, my Lord".[21] By the end of the song's second verse, Harrison declares a wish to "know" God also[25][26] and attempts to reconcile the impatience.[21]

"My Sweet Lord" has got a mantra in there and mantras are – well, they call it a mystical sound vibration encased in the syllable ... Once I chanted it for like three days non-stop, driving through Europe, and you just get hypnotised ...[27]

– George Harrison

Following this verse, in response to the main vocal's repetition of the song title, Harrison devised a choral line singing the Hebrew word of praise, "hallelujah", common in the Christian and Jewish religions.[19] Later in the song, after an instrumental break, these voices return, now chanting the first twelve words of the Hare Krishna mantra, known more reverentially as the Maha mantra:[10][19]

Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna
Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare
Hare Rama, Hare Rama

These Sanskrit words are the main mantra of the Hare Krishna faith, with which Harrison identified,[6][28][29] although he did not belong to any spiritual organisation.[30][31] In his 1980 autobiography, I, Me, Mine, Harrison says that he intended repeating and alternating "hallelujah" and "Hare Krishna" to show that the two terms meant "quite the same thing",[20] as well as to have listeners chanting the mantra "before they knew what was going on!"[32]

Following the Sanskrit lines, "hallelujah" is sung twice more before the mantra repeats,[33] along with an ancient Vedic prayer.[25] According to Hindu tradition, this prayer is dedicated to a devotee's spiritual teacher, or guru, and equates the teacher to the divine Trimurti – Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva (or Maheshvara) – and to the Godhead, Brahman.[34]

Gurur Brahmā, gurur Viṣṇur
gurur devo Maheśvaraḥ
gurus sākṣāt, paraṃ Brahma
tasmai śrī gurave namaḥ.

Religious academic Joshua Greene, one of the Radha Krishna Temple devotees in 1970, translates the lines as follows: "I offer homage to my guru, who is as great as the creator Brahma, the maintainer Vishnu, the destroyer Shiva, and who is the very energy of God."[35] The prayer is the third verse of the Guru Stotram, a fourteen-verse hymn in praise of Hindu spiritual teachers.[36][nb 1]

Several commentators cite the mantra and the simplicity of Harrison's lyrics as central to the song's universality.[21][38] In Inglis's view, "[The] lyrics are not directed at a specific manifestation of a single faith's deity, but rather to the concept of one god whose essential nature is unaffected by particular interpretations and who pervades everything, is present everywhere, is all-knowing and all-powerful, and transcends time and space ... All of us – Christian, Hindu, Muslim, Jew, Buddhist – can address our gods in the same way, using the same phrase ['my sweet Lord']."[21]

Billy Preston's version

"My Sweet Lord"
 
Single by Billy Preston
from the album Encouraging Words
B-side"Little Girl"
Released3 December 1970
GenreSoul, gospel
Length3:21
LabelApple
Songwriter(s)George Harrison
Producer(s)George Harrison, Billy Preston
Billy Preston singles chronology

With the Beatles still together officially in December 1969, Harrison had no plans to make a solo album of his own and reportedly intended to offer "My Sweet Lord" to Edwin Hawkins.[39][40] Instead, following the Delaney & Bonnie tour, he decided to record it with Billy Preston,[4] for whom Harrison was co-producing a second Apple album, Encouraging Words.[41][42] Recording took place at Olympic Studios in London, in January 1970,[8] with Preston as principal musician,[16] supported by the guitarist, bass player and drummer from the Temptations' backing band.[12] The Edwin Hawkins Singers happened to be on tour in the UK as well, so Harrison invited them to participate.[12][39][nb 2]

Preston's version of "My Sweet Lord" differs from Harrison's later reading in that the "hallelujah" refrain appears from the start of the song and, rather than the full mantra section, the words "Hare Krishna" are sung only twice throughout the whole track.[12] With the Vedic prayer also absent, Leng views this original recording as a possible "definitive 'roots' take'" of the song, citing its "pure gospel groove" and Hawkins' participation.[5] In his review of Encouraging Words, Bruce Eder of AllMusic describes "My Sweet Lord" and "All Things Must Pass" (another Harrison composition originally given to Preston to record)[43] as "stunning gospel numbers ... that make the Harrison versions seem pallid".[44]

Preston's "My Sweet Lord" was a minor hit in Europe when issued as a single there in September 1970,[43] but otherwise, Encouraging Words made little impression commercially.[44][45] The album and single releases were delayed for at least two months in the United States. There, "My Sweet Lord" climbed to number 90 on the Billboard Hot 100 by the end of February 1971,[46] helped by the enormous success of Harrison's version.[47] Preston's single also peaked at number 23 on Billboard's Best Selling Soul Singles chart.[48] In March 1971, he recorded a live version with King Curtis that was released in 2006 on the expanded edition of Curtis's album Live at Fillmore West.[49]

Recording

Basic track

Five months after the Olympic session, with the Beatles having broken up in April 1970, "My Sweet Lord" was one of 30 or more tracks that Harrison recorded for his All Things Must Pass triple album.[50] He was initially reluctant to record the song, for fear of committing himself to such an overt religious message.[32][51] In I, Me, Mine, he states: "I was sticking my neck out on the chopping block because now I would have to live up to something, but at the same time I thought 'Nobody's saying it; I wish somebody else was doing it.'"[20]

 
Abbey Road Studios (formerly EMI Studios), where Harrison recorded "My Sweet Lord"

Principal recording took place at EMI Studios (now Abbey Road Studios) in London, with Phil Spector co-producing the sessions.[52] Phil McDonald was the recording engineer for the basic track.[53] It was taped on 28 May, the first day of formal recording for All Things Must Pass, after "Wah-Wah".[54] Having assembled a large cast of backing musicians for the sessions, Harrison initially recorded five takes of "My Sweet Lord" with just acoustic guitars and harmonium before changing to a full band arrangement.[55]

The line-up of musicians on the song has been hard to ascertain due to the lack of available studio documentation and conflicting recollections over the ensuing decades.[51][56] The musicians were requested by Harrison and booked by former Beatles roadie Mal Evans, acting in a role that Beatles scholar Kenneth Womack likens to a stage manager for the project. According to Womack and his co-author Jason Kruppa, Evans' diaries from the period provide the first reliable record of the participants at the All Things Must Pass sessions, since Evans paid the musicians and had to justify this expenditure to Apple.[57]

Harrison said that the musicians included "about five" acoustic guitarists, Ringo Starr and Jim Gordon on drums,[39] two piano players and a bassist.[58] Evans' diary entry for 28 May lists the players on "My Sweet Lord" as Harrison, Eric Clapton and Badfinger guitarists Pete Ham and Joey Molland, all on acoustic guitars; Gary Brooker on piano; Bobby Whitlock on harmonium; Klaus Voormann on bass; Starr on drums; and Alan White on tambourine.[59][nb 3]

Harrison recalled working hard with the other acoustic guitarists "to get them all to play exactly the same rhythm so it just sounded perfectly in sync".[58] To achieve the resonant guitar sound on this and other All Things Must Pass tracks, Molland said that he and his bandmates were partitioned off inside a plywood structure.[63][nb 4] McDonald put what he terms a "half soundproof box" around Harrison, to help capture his acoustic guitar.[54]

Overdubs

"My Sweet Lord" must have taken about twelve hours to overdub the guitar solos. He must have had that in triplicate, six-part harmony, before we decided on two-part harmony. Perfectionist is not the word ... He was beyond that. He just had to have it so right. He would try and try and experiment upon experiment ... He'd do the same with the background vocals.[64]

– Phil Spector on Harrison's dedication to overdubs on the initial recording

Take 16 of "My Sweet Lord" was selected for overdubs.[54] From late July onwards,[65] Harrison and Peter Frampton added further acoustic guitars to the song[66] and to other tracks from the album.[67][68] The chorus vocals were all sung by Harrison and credited to "the George O'Hara-Smith Singers".[32][69][nb 5] These contributions, together with Harrison's slide guitar parts and Barham's orchestral arrangement, were overdubbed during the next two months,[64] partly at Trident Studios in central London with engineer Ken Scott.[39][71]

Harrison experimented with several harmony ideas in his guitar parts,[72] having first applied himself to mastering slide during the 1969 Delaney & Bonnie tour.[73] Scott had to extend the original track, repeating a portion of the final section, to allow for the closing prayer and fadeout.[74] The session for Barham's string arrangement took place on 18 September, involving 22 orchestral musicians.[75]

Arrangement

Harrison biographer Simon Leng describes the completed recording as a "painstakingly crafted tableau" of sound, beginning with a bank of "chiming" acoustic guitars and the "flourish" of zither strings that introduces Harrison's slide-guitar motif.[76] At close to the two-minute mark, after the tension-building bridge, a subtle two-semitone shift in key (from E major to the rarely used key of F♯ major, via a C♯ dominant seventh chord) signals the song's release from its extended introduction.[77] This higher register is then complemented by Harrison's "increasingly impassioned" vocal, according to Inglis, and the subsequent "timely reappearance" of his twin slide guitars,[21] before the backing vocals switch to the Sanskrit mantra and prayer.[33] Leng comments on the Indian music aspects of the arrangement, in the "swarmandal-like" zithers, representing the sympathetic strings of a sitar, and the slide guitars' evocation of sarangi, dilruba and other string instruments.[78] In an interview for Martin Scorsese's 2011 documentary George Harrison: Living in the Material World, Spector recalls that he liked the results so much, he insisted that "My Sweet Lord" be the lead single from the album.[79]

This rock version of the song was markedly different from the "Oh Happy Day"-inspired gospel arrangement in musical and structural terms,[8] aligning Harrison's composition with pop music conventions, but also drawing out the similarities of its melody line with that of the Chiffons' 1963 hit "He's So Fine".[4] Beatles historian Bruce Spizer writes that this was due to Harrison being "so focused on the feel of his record",[80] while Record Collector editor Peter Doggett wrote in 2001 that, despite Harrison's inspiration for "My Sweet Lord" having come from "Oh Happy Day", "in the hands of producer and arranger Phil Spector, it came out as a carbon copy of the Chiffons' [song]".[81] Chip Madinger and Mark Easter rue that Spector, as "master of all that was 'girl-group' during the early '60s", failed to recognise the similarities.[39]

Release

Before arriving in New York on 28 October to carry out mastering on All Things Must Pass, Harrison had announced that no single would be issued – so as not to "detract from the impact" of the album.[82] Apple's US executive, Allan Steckler, surprised him by insisting that not only should Harrison abandon thoughts of paring down his new material into a single LP, but there were three sure-fire hit singles: "My Sweet Lord", "Isn't It a Pity" and "What Is Life".[83] Spector said that he had to "fight" Harrison and the latter's manager, Allen Klein, to ensure that "My Sweet Lord" was issued as the single.[79] Film director Howard Worth recalls a preliminary finance meeting for the Raga documentary (for which Harrison would provide emergency funding through Apple Films)[84] that began with the ex-Beatle asking him to listen to a selection of songs and pick his favourite, which was "My Sweet Lord".[85] The song was selected even though Preston's version was already scheduled for release as a single in America the following month.[51]

Harrison was opposed to the release but relented to Apple's wishes.[86] "My Sweet Lord" was issued as the album's lead single around the world, but not in Britain;[79] the release date was 23 November 1970 in the United States.[87] The mix of the song differed from that found on All Things Must Pass by featuring less echo and a slightly altered backing-vocal track.[39][51] Both sides of the North American picture sleeve consisted of a Barry Feinstein photo of Harrison taken through a window at his recently purchased Friar Park home, with some of the estate's trees reflected in the glass.[80] Released as a double A-side with "Isn't It a Pity", with Apple catalogue number 2995 in America, both sides of the disc featured a full Apple label.[80]

Public demand via constant airplay in Britain led to a belated UK release,[88] on 15 January 1971.[89] There, as Apple R 5884, the single was backed by "What Is Life", a song that Apple soon released elsewhere internationally as the follow-up to "My Sweet Lord".[90]

Impact and commercial performance

All Things Must Pass was an unconditional triumph for Harrison ... "My Sweet Lord" was everything that people wanted to hear in November 1970: shimmering harmonies, lustrous acoustic guitars, a solid Ringo Starr backbeat, and an exquisite [Harrison] guitar solo.[38]

– Author Peter Lavezzoli, The Dawn of Indian Music in the West

Harrison's version of "My Sweet Lord" was an international number 1 hit by the end of 1970 and through the early months of 1971.[91] It was the first solo single by a Beatle to reach the top,[92] and the biggest seller by any of the four throughout the 1970s.[93][94] Without the support of any concert appearances or promotional interviews by Harrison, the single's commercial success was due to its impact on radio,[40] where, Harrison biographer Gary Tillery writes, the song "rolled across the airwaves like a juggernaut, with commanding presence, much the way Dylan's 'Like a Rolling Stone' had arrived in the mid-sixties".[95] Elton John recalled first hearing "My Sweet Lord" in a taxi and named it as the last of the era's great singles: "I thought, 'Oh my God,' and I got chills. You know when a record starts on the radio, and it's great, and you think, 'Oh, what is this, what is this, what is this?' The only other record I ever felt that way about [afterwards] was 'Brown Sugar' ..."[96]

Writing for Rolling Stone in 2002, Mikal Gilmore said "My Sweet Lord" was "as pervasive on radio and in youth consciousness as anything the Beatles had produced".[97] The release coincided with a period when religion and spirituality had become a craze among Western youth, as songs by Radha Krishna Temple and adaptations of the Christian hymns "Oh Happy Day" and "Amazing Grace" were all worldwide hits,[98] even as church attendance continued to decline.[92][nb 6] Harrison's song popularised the Hare Krishna mantra internationally,[100] further to the impact of the Radha Krishna Temple's 1969 recording.[28] In response to the heavy radio play, letters poured into the London temple from around the world, thanking Harrison for his religious message in "My Sweet Lord".[101][nb 7] According to music historian Andrew Grant Jackson, the single's impact surpassed that of any other song in the era's spiritual revival, and Harrison's Indian-influenced slide playing, soon heard also in recordings by Lennon, Starr and Badfinger, was one of the most distinctive sounds of the early 1970s.[103]

The single was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America on 14 December 1970 for sales of over 1 million copies.[40][104] It reached number 1 on the US Billboard Hot 100 on 26 December,[105] remaining on top for four weeks, three of which coincided with All Things Must Pass's seven-week run atop the Billboard albums chart.[106][107] While Billboard recognised both sides of the single in the US,[108] only "Isn't It a Pity" was listed when the record topped Canada's RPM 100 chart.[109]

In Britain, "My Sweet Lord" entered the charts at number 7, before hitting number 1 on 30 January[110] and staying there for five weeks.[111] It was the biggest-selling single of 1971 in the UK[112][113] and performed similarly well around the world,[69] particularly in France and Germany, where it held the top spot for nine and ten weeks, respectively.[114] In his 2001 appraisal of Harrison's Apple recordings, for Record Collector, Doggett described Harrison as "arguably the most successful rock star on the planet" over this period, adding: "'My Sweet Lord' and All Things Must Pass topped charts all over the world, easily outstripping other solo Beatles projects later in the year, such as Ram and Imagine."[91]

The single's worldwide sales amounted to 5 million copies by 1978, making it one of the best-selling singles of all time.[114] By 2010, according to Inglis, "My Sweet Lord" had sold over 10 million copies.[115] The song returned to the number 1 position again in the UK when reissued in January 2002, two months after Harrison's death from cancer at the age of 58.[111]

Contemporary critical reception

Reviewing the single for Rolling Stone, Jon Landau called the track "sensational".[116] Billboard's reviewer described the record as "a powerhouse two-sided winner", saying that "My Sweet Lord" had the "potent feel and flavor of another 'Oh Happy Day'", with powerful lyrics and an "infectious rhythm".[117] Record World called it "a haunting inspirational hare krishna chant-song to a tune reminiscent of the Chiffons' 'He's So Fine.'"[118] Ben Gerson of Rolling Stone commented that the substituting of Harrison's "Hare Krishna" refrain for the trivial "Doo-lang, doo-lang, doo-lang"s of "He's So Fine" was "a sign of the times"[119] and recognised Harrison as "perhaps the premier studio musician among rock band guitarists".[92][nb 8] In his December 1970 album review for NME, Alan Smith bemoaned the apparent lack of a UK single release for "My Sweet Lord". Smith said the song "seems to owe something" to "He's So Fine",[120][121] and Gerson called it an "obvious re-write".[119]

Led by the single, the album encouraged widespread recognition of Harrison as a solo artist and revised views of the nature of the Beatles' creative leadership.[116] Among these writers,[122] Don Heckman of The New York Times predicted that "My Sweet Lord" / "Isn't It a Pity" would soon top the US charts and credited Harrison with having "generated some of the major changes in the style and substance of the Beatles" through his championing of Indian music and Eastern religion.[123]

In a January 1971 review for NME, Derek Johnson expressed surprise at Apple's delay in releasing the single in the UK, and stated: "In my opinion, this record – finally and irrevocably – establishes George as a talent equivalent to either Lennon or McCartney."[121] David Hughes of Disc and Music Echo said he had run out of superlatives to describe the two sides. He deemed "My Sweet Lord" "the most instant and the most commercial" track on All Things Must Pass, adding that the single release was long overdue and a solution for those put off by the high price of the triple LP. Hughes also wrote: "A great rhythm is set up and then comes that superb steel guitar with which he's so fallen in love ... [The track] does sound like the old Chiffons' song 'He's So Fine', but that's not a knock, just a cocky observation."[124]

At the end of 1971, "My Sweet Lord" topped the Melody Maker reader's polls for both "Single of the Year" and "World's Single of the Year".[125] It was also voted "Single of the Year" in a poll conducted by Radio Luxembourg.[126] In the US publication Record World, the song was voted best single and Harrison was named as "Top Male Vocalist of 1971".[113] In June 1972, Harrison won two Ivor Novello songwriter's awards for "My Sweet Lord".[127]

Copyright infringement suit

Initial action

On 10 February 1971, Bright Tunes Music Corporation filed suit against Harrison and associated organisations (including Harrisongs, Apple Records and BMI), alleging copyright infringement of the late Ronnie Mack's song "He's So Fine".[16] In I Me Mine, Harrison admits to having thought "Why didn't I realise?" when others started pointing out the similarity between the two songs.[20] By June that year, country singer Jody Miller had released a cover of "He's So Fine" incorporating Harrison's "My Sweet Lord" slide-guitar riffs,[128] thereby "really putting the screws in" from Harrison's point of view.[129] At this time, Bright Tunes were themselves the subject of litigation, as Mack's mother had sued the company over non-payment of royalties.[130] Allen Klein entered into negotiations with Bright Tunes, offering to buy its entire catalogue, but no settlement could be reached before the company was forced into receivership.[16]

Musicologist Dominic Pedler writes that both songs have a three-syllable title refrain followed by a 5-3-2 descent of the major scale in the tonic key (E major for "My Sweet Lord" and G major for "He's So Fine"); respective tempos are similar: 121 and 145 beats per minute.[131] In the respective B sections ("I really want to see you" and "I dunno how I'm gonna do it"), there is a similar ascent through 5-6-8, but the Chiffons distinctively retain the G tonic for four bars and, on the repeat of the motif, uniquely go to an A-note 9th embellishment over the first syllable of "gonna".[77] Harrison, on the other hand, introduces the more complex harmony of a relative minor (C#m), as well as the fundamental and distinctly original slide-guitar motif.[77]

While the case was on hold, Harrison and his former bandmates Lennon and Starr chose to sever ties with Klein at the end of March 1973 – an acrimonious split that led to further lawsuits for the three ex-Beatles.[132] Bright Tunes and Harrison later resumed their negotiations. His final offer of 40 per cent of "My Sweet Lord"'s US composer's and publisher's royalties, along with a stipulation that he retain copyright for his song, was viewed as a "good one" by Bright's legal representation, yet the offer was rejected.[129] It later transpired that Klein had renewed his efforts to purchase the ailing company, now solely for himself, and to that end was supplying Bright Tunes with insider details regarding "My Sweet Lord"'s sales figures and copyright value.[16][133]

According to journalist Bob Woffinden, writing in 1981, the case would most likely have been settled privately, as so many had been in the past, had Mack still been alive and had "personal ownership of the copyright" been a factor.[134] In the build-up to the case going to court, the Chiffons recorded a version of "My Sweet Lord" in 1975, with the aim of drawing attention to the lawsuit.[128] Author Alan Clayson has described the plagiarism suit as "the most notorious civil action of the decade",[135] saying that the "extremity" of the proceedings were provoked by a combination of the commercial success of Harrison's single and the intervention of "litigation-loving Mr Klein".[130]

Court hearing and ruling

Bright Tunes Music v. Harrisongs Music went to the United States district court on 23 February 1976, to hear evidence on the allegation of plagiarism.[16][133] Harrison attended the proceedings in New York, with a guitar, and each side called musical experts to support its argument.[128] Harrison's counsel contended that he had drawn inspiration from "Oh Happy Day" and that Mack's composition was also derived from that hymn. The judge presiding was Richard Owen, a classical musician and composer of operas in his spare time.[136]

After reconvening in September 1976, the court found that Harrison had subconsciously copied "He's So Fine", since he admitted to having been aware of the Chiffons' recording.[137] Owen said in his conclusion to the proceedings:[138]

Did Harrison deliberately use the music of "He's So Fine"? I do not believe he did so deliberately. Nevertheless, it is clear that "My Sweet Lord" is the very same song as "He's So Fine" with different words, and Harrison had access to "He's So Fine". This is, under the law, infringement of copyright, and is no less so even though subconsciously accomplished.

Damages and litigation

With liability established, the court recommended an amount for the damages to be paid by Harrison and Apple to Bright Tunes, which Owen totalled at $1,599,987.[139] This figure amounted to three-quarters of the royalty revenue raised in North America from "My Sweet Lord", as well as a significant proportion of that from the All Things Must Pass album.[16] Some observers have considered this unreasonable and unduly harsh,[140] since it underplayed the unique elements of Harrison's recording – the universal spiritual message of its lyrics, the signature guitar hook, and its production – and ignored the acclaim his album received in its own right.[16][141][nb 9] The award factored in the royalty revenue raised from "My Sweet Lord"'s inclusion on the recent Best of George Harrison compilation, though at a more moderate percentage than for the 1970 album.[16] In the UK, the corresponding damages suit, brought by Peter Maurice Music, was swiftly settled out of court in July 1977.[130]

During the drawn-out damages portion of the US suit, events played into Harrison's hands when Klein's ABKCO Industries purchased the copyright to "He's So Fine", and with it all litigation claims,[140] after which Klein proceeded to negotiate sale of the song to Harrison.[16] On 19 February 1981, the court decided that, due to Klein's duplicity in the case, Harrison would only have to pay ABKCO $587,000 instead of the $1.6 million award and would also receive the rights to "He's So Fine" – $587,000 being the amount Klein had paid Bright Tunes for the song in 1978.[16][139] The court ruled that Klein's actions had been in breach of the fiduciary duty owed to Harrison, a duty that continued "even after the principal–agent relationship ended".[16]

The litigation continued through to the early 1990s as the finer points of the settlement were finally decided. In his 1993 essay on Bright Tunes v. Harrisongs, Joseph Self describes it as "without question, one of the longest running legal battles ever to be litigated in [the United States]".[16] Music journalist David Cavanagh termed it "the most absurd legal black comedy in the annals of rock".[143] Matters were concluded in March 1998.[80] Harrison retained the rights for both songs in the UK and North America, and Klein was awarded the rights elsewhere in the world.[49]

Reaction

The ruling set new legal precedents and was a personal blow for Harrison, who said he was too "paranoid" to write anything new for some time afterwards.[144][145][nb 10] Early reaction in the music industry saw Little Richard claim for breach of copyright in a track recorded by the Beatles in 1964 for the Beatles for Sale album,[128] as well as Ringo Starr credit songwriter Clifford T. Ward as the inspiration for his Ringo's Rotogravure song "Lady Gaye".[146]

Look, I'd be willing, every time I write a song, if somebody will have a computer and I can just play any new song into it, and the computer will say, "Sorry" or, "OK". The last thing I want to do is keep spending my life in court.[147]

– George Harrison, October 1977

Shortly before the ruling was handed down in September 1976, Harrison wrote and recorded a song inspired by the court case – the upbeat "This Song".[148] It includes the lines "This tune has nothing 'Bright' about it" and "don't infringe on anyone's copyright".[149] The 1960s soul hits "I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch)" and "Rescue Me", as well as his own composition "You", are all name-checked in the lyrics,[150] as if to demonstrate the point that, as he later put it, "99 per cent of the popular music that can be heard is reminiscent of something or other."[151][152] In I, Me, Mine, Harrison says of the episode: "I don't feel guilty or bad about it, in fact ['My Sweet Lord'] saved many a heroin addict's life. I know the motive behind writing the song in the first place and its effect far exceeded the legal hassle."[153]

According to Woffinden, the ruling came as no surprise in the US. "He's So Fine" had been a major hit there, unlike in the UK, and American commentators had been quick to scrutinise "My Sweet Lord" for its similarities.[154] Woffinden nevertheless wrote that "within the context of rock music, it was an unjust decision" and that Owen "clearly understood nothing of rock 'n' roll, or gospel, or popular music" in terms of shared influences. Woffinden commented that, as of 1981, no comparable action over copyright infringement had been launched despite the continuation of this tradition; he cited the appropriation of aspects of Harrison's 1966 song "Taxman" in the Jam's recent number 1 hit "Start!" as an example of the industry's preference for avoiding the courtroom.[136][nb 11]

When asked to comment on the decision in a 1976 interview, Starr said: "There's no doubt that the tune is similar but how many songs have been written with other melodies in mind? George's version is much heavier than the Chiffons – he might have done it with the original in the back of his mind, but he's just very unlucky that someone wanted to make it a test case in court."[156] In his 1980 interview with Playboy, John Lennon expressed doubt about the notion of "subconscious" plagiarism, saying of Harrison: "He must have known, you know. He's smarter than that ... 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."[157][158] McCartney conceded that the Beatles "stole a lot of stuff" from other artists;[159] in a 2008 interview, he said the "nick" from "He's So Fine" was validated because Harrison had avoided the "boy–girl thing" and offered an important spiritual message.[143]

Retrospective reviews and legacy

AllMusic's Richie Unterberger says of the song's international popularity: "'My Sweet Lord' has a quasi-religious feel, but nevertheless has enough conventional pop appeal to reach mainstream listeners who may or may not care to dig into the spiritual lyrical message."[160] Some Christian fundamentalist anti-rock activists have objected that chanting "Hare Krishna" in "My Sweet Lord" was anti-Christian or satanic, while some born-again Christians adopted the song as an anthem.[161] Simon Leng describes the slide guitar motif as "among the best-known guitar passages in popular music".[162] Ian Inglis highlights the combination of Harrison's "evident lack of artifice" and Spector's "excellent production", such that "My Sweet Lord" can be heard "as a prayer, a love song, an anthem, a contemporary gospel track, or a piece of perfect pop".[21]

According to music historians David Luhrssen and Michael Larson, "My Sweet Lord" "became an early battleground over music as intellectual property" and the ruling against Harrison "opened a floodgate of suits over allegedly similar melodies and chord progressions".[163] In a 2016 Rolling Stone article on landmark music copyright cases, the suit is credited with establishing "a precedent of harsher copyright standards" as well as "introducing the phrase 'subconscious plagiarism' into the popular lexicon".[164][nb 12] Writing in The New York Review of Books in 2013, author and neurologist Oliver Sacks cited the case when stating his preference for the word cryptomnesia over plagiarism, which he said was "suggestive of crime and deceit". Sacks added that Owen had displayed "psychological insight and sympathy" in deeming Harrison's infringement to have been "subconsciously accomplished".[168]

Due to the plagiarism suit, "My Sweet Lord" became stigmatised.[160][169][170] While acknowledging the similarity with "He's So Fine", music critic David Fricke describes Harrison's composition as "the honest child of black American sacred song".[6] Jayson Greene of Pitchfork writes that the court ruling of subconscious plagiarism "could be a good euphemism for 'pop songwriting'" generally, and the episode was "doubly ironic considering Harrison's intrinsic generosity as an artist".[171] In a 2001 review, Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune said that "My Sweet Lord" serves as the entrance to Spector's "cathedral of sound" on All Things Must Pass, adding that although Harrison lost the lawsuit, the song's "towering majesty ... remains undiminished".[172] Mikal Gilmore calls it an "irresistible devotional".[97] In 2009, pop culture critic Roy Trakin commented that if music fans were in doubt as to Harrison's enduring influence, they should "listen to Wilco's latest album for a song called 'You Never Know', which is even closer to 'My Sweet Lord' than that one was to 'He's So Fine', with its slide guitar lines practically an homage to the original."[173] David Simons of Acoustic Guitar magazine says that, further to his contributions to the Beatles' recordings, Harrison "elevated the sound and scope of recorded acoustic guitar" with his debut single.[63]

In their written tributes to Harrison shortly after his death, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards each named "My Sweet Lord" among their personal favourites of all his songs, along with "While My Guitar Gently Weeps".[174] In 2010, AOL Radio listeners voted it the best song from Harrison's solo years.[175] According to a chart published by PPL in August 2018, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of Apple Records' founding, "My Sweet Lord" had received the most airplay in the 21st century of any song released by the record label,[176] ahead of Lennon's "Imagine" and the Beatles' "Hey Jude".[177]

"My Sweet Lord" was ranked 454th on Rolling Stone's list of "the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time" in 2004[178] and 460th on the magazine's revised list in 2010.[179] According to the website Acclaimed Music, it has also appeared in the following critics' best-song lists and books, among others: The 7,500 Most Important Songs of 1944–2000 by author Bruce Pollock (2005), Dave Thompson's 1000 Songs That Rock Your World (2011; ranked at number 247), Ultimate Classic Rock's "Top 100 Classic Rock Songs" (2013; number 56), the NME's "100 Best Songs of the 1970s" (2012; number 65), and the same magazine's "500 Greatest Songs of All Time" (2014; number 270).[180]

Re-releases and alternative versions

Since its initial release on All Things Must Pass, "My Sweet Lord" has appeared on the 1976 compilation The Best of George Harrison and 2009's career-spanning Let It Roll: Songs by George Harrison.[181] The original UK single (with "What Is Life" as the B-side) was reissued on Christmas Eve 1976 in Britain[182] – a "provocative" move by EMI, given the publicity the lawsuit had attracted that year for the song.[183] The song appears in the 2017 Marvel Studios film Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2,[184] and it is included on the film's soundtrack.[185]

To promote the 50th anniversary reissue of All Things Must Pass in December 2021, the Harrison estate released a music video for the 2020 mix of "My Sweet Lord".[186] Executive produced by Dhani Harrison and David Zonshine, it was written and directed by Lance Bangs, and stars Mark Hamill, Vanessa Bayer and Fred Armisen as secret agents investigating a mysterious phenomenon around Los Angeles. Much of the video follows Armisen's perspective, from a room filled with books to a large cinema showing a fictional film of George Harrison's home footage, titled All Things Must Pass. The video features cameos from many celebrities – including Patton Oswalt, "Weird Al" Yankovic, Ringo Starr, Jeff Lynne, Joe Walsh, Dhani and Olivia Harrison – and ends with Armisen and Bayer's characters solving the mystery by hearing the song for the first time on their car radio.[186][187]

1975 – "The Pirate Song"

On 26 December 1975, Harrison made a guest appearance on his friend Eric Idle's BBC2 comedy show Rutland Weekend Television,[188][189] sending up his serious public image, and seemingly about to perform "My Sweet Lord".[190]

As a running gag in the show, Harrison interrupts the proceedings, hoping for an acting role as "Pirate Bob", dressed in a pirate costume with a parrot on his shoulder.[189][191] He gets turned down each time by Idle and RWT regular Neil Innes, who simply want him to play the part of "George Harrison".[192] At the end, dressed in more normal attire and backed by the house band, Harrison appears on stage strumming the introduction to "My Sweet Lord" on acoustic guitar.[193] Instead of continuing with the song, Harrison takes his chance to play Pirate Bob[188] by abruptly segueing into a sea shanty.[194] Idle, in his role as a "greasy" compère, reacts with horror[192] and attempts to have Harrison removed from the studio.[191][nb 13]

This performance is known as "The Pirate Song", co-written by Harrison and Idle,[195] and the recording is only available unofficially on bootleg compilations such as Pirate Songs.[193] Commenting on the parallels with Harrison's real-life reluctance to play the pop star, Simon Leng writes, "there was great resonance within these gags."[192]

2001 – "My Sweet Lord (2000)"

In January 2001, Harrison included a new version of the song as a bonus track on the remastered All Things Must Pass album.[6] Titled "My Sweet Lord (2000)", it features Harrison sharing vocals with Sam Brown, the daughter of his friend Joe Brown,[196] backed by mostly new instrumentation, including acoustic guitar by his son Dhani and tambourine by Ray Cooper.[197][198] The track opens with a "snippet" of sitar, in Leng's description, to "emphasize its spiritual roots".[199] Harrison said that his motivation for remaking the song was partly to "play a better slide guitar solo".[162] As further reasons, he cited the "spiritual response" that the song had long received, together with his interest in reworking the tune to avoid the contentious musical notes.[200] Of the extended slide-guitar break on "My Sweet Lord (2000)", Leng writes: "[Harrison] had never made so clear a musical statement that his signature bottleneck sound was as much his tool for self-expression as his vocal cords."[199] Elliot Huntley opines that Harrison's vocal was more "gospel inflected" and perhaps even more sincere than on the original recording, "given his deteriorating health" during the final year of his life.[198]

This version also appeared on the January 2002 posthumous release of the "My Sweet Lord" charity CD single, comprising the original "My Sweet Lord", Harrison's reworking, and the acoustic run-through of "Let It Down" (with recent overdubs, another 2001 bonus track).[201] Proceeds went to Harrison's Material World Charitable Foundation for dispersal to selected charities, apart from in the United States, where proceeds went to the Self Realization Fellowship.[202] For some months after the single release, a portion of "My Sweet Lord (2000)" looped on Harrison's official website over screen images of lotus petals scattering and re-forming.[203] It also appears on the 2014 Apple Years 1968–75 reissue of All Things Must Pass.[204]

2011 – Demo version

In November 2011, a demo of "My Sweet Lord", with Harrison backed by just Voormann and Starr,[205][206] was included on the deluxe edition CD accompanying the British DVD release of Scorsese's Living in the Material World documentary.[207] The trio recorded the song at EMI Studios on 26 May 1970, on the first of two days dedicated to taping demos of compositions under consideration for All Things Must Pass.[206][208]

Giles Martin, who helped organise Harrison's recordings archive at Friar Park for the film project, described the track as an early "live take".[209] The demo was released internationally in May 2012 on the Early Takes: Volume 1 compilation.[207][210] In his album review for Rolling Stone, David Frick deemed this version of the song an "acoustic hosanna".[211]

Harrison live versions

Harrison performed "My Sweet Lord" at every one of his relatively few solo concerts,[212] starting with the two Concert for Bangladesh shows at New York's Madison Square Garden on 1 August 1971.[213] The recording released on the subsequent live album was taken from the evening show[214] and begins with Harrison's spoken "Hare Krishna" over his opening acoustic-guitar chords.[215] Among the 24 backing musicians was a "Soul Choir" featuring singers Claudia Linnear, Dolores Hall and Joe Greene,[216] but it was Harrison who sang the end-of-song Guru Stotram prayer in his role as lead vocalist, unlike on the studio recording (where it was sung by the backing chorus).[217] The slide guitar parts were played by Eric Clapton and Jesse Ed Davis.[218]

During his 1974 North American tour, Harrison's only one there as a solo artist, he performed "My Sweet Lord" as the encore at each show.[219][nb 14] In contrast with the subtle shift from "hallelujah"s to Sanskrit chants on his 1970 original,[33] Harrison used the song to engage his audience in kirtan, the practice of "chanting the holy names of the Lord" in Indian religions – from "Om Christ!" and Krishna, to Buddha and Allah[222] – with varying degrees of success.[223][224] Backed by a band that again included Billy Preston, Harrison turned "My Sweet Lord" into an extended gospel-funk piece, closer in its arrangement to Preston's Encouraging Words version and lasting up to ten minutes.[225][nb 15]

Harrison's second and final solo tour took place in Japan in December 1991, with Clapton's band.[227][228] A live version of "My Sweet Lord" recorded at the Tokyo Dome, on 14 December, was released the following year on the Live in Japan album.[229]

Cover versions and tributes

"My Sweet Lord" attracted many cover versions in the early 1970s and was the most performed song of 1971. Its coinciding with a trend for spirituality in rock music ensured it was frequently performed on religious-themed television shows. The song was also popular among supper club performers following recordings by artists such as Johnny Mathis.[230]

The song was accepted as an authentic work in the gospel tradition;[231] in music journalist Chris Ingham's description, it became a "genuine gospel classic".[232] Many of the Christian cover artists have omitted the mantra lyrics on religious grounds.[184]

In 1972, Nina Simone released an 18-minute gospel reworking of "My Sweet Lord", performed live at Fort Dix before a group of African-American soldiers.[233] It served as an anti-Vietnam War statement and the centrepiece of her album Emergency Ward!,[49] which also included an 11-minute version of Harrison's "Isn't It a Pity".[233] Simone interspersed the song with the David Nelson poem "Today Is a Killer", giving the performance an apocalyptic ending.[233]

By the late 1970s, "My Sweet Lord" was the most covered song written and released by any of the former Beatles since the band's break-up.[234] Edwin Starr and Byron Lee and the Dragonaires were among the other artists who recorded it.[49]

In April 2002, Elton John, Sting, James Taylor, Ravi Shankar, Anoushka Shankar and others performed "My Sweet Lord" to close the Harrison-tribute opening portion of the Rock for the Rainforest benefit concert, held at Carnegie Hall in New York City.[235] At the Concert for George on 29 November 2002, it was performed by Billy Preston.[236]

Personnel

According to Mal Evans' diary (except where noted), the following musicians played on Harrison's original version of "My Sweet Lord".[59]

Accolades

Year Awards Category Result
1971 Record World Best Single Disc of the Year Won[113]
Melody Maker British Single of the Year Won[125]
World Single of the Year Won[125]
1972 NME Awards Best Single Disc Won[237]
14th Grammy Awards Record of the Year Nominated[238]
17th Ivor Novello Awards The "A" Side of the Record Issued in 1971 Which Achieved the Highest Certified British Sales Won[239]
The Most Performed Work of the Year Won[239]

Chart performance

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications and sales

Region Certification Certified units/sales
Italy (FIMI)[276] Gold 35,000 
Japan (RIAJ)[277] 2× Platinum 269,000[247]
United Kingdom (BPI)[279] Platinum 960,561[278]
United States (RIAA)[280] Platinum 1,000,000 

  Sales+streaming figures based on certification alone.

Notes

  1. ^ The same verse appears at the end of Ravi Shankar's "Vandanaa Trayee", the opening track of the Harrison-produced 1997 album Chants of India.[37]
  2. ^ Hawkins' gospel group also overdubbed vocals onto the Harrison–Preston collaboration "Sing One for the Lord" at this time.[5]
  3. ^ Authors Simon Leng and Bruce Spizer list Preston as having played on the recording, along with Clapton, Gary Wright (on piano), Voormann, and all four members of Badfinger (on acoustic guitars and tambourine).[51][60] Wright's first Harrison session was for "Isn't It a Pity", however, which took place on 2 June.[61] Leng compiled his description of the album sessions after consulting Voormann and John Barham in the early 2000s, and from an interview with Molland; Leng states that his keyboard credits for All Things Must Pass are "more indicative than authoritative".[62] According to Kruppa, citing Evans' list, Badfinger drummer Mike Gibbins was evidently "sitting out" the session for "My Sweet Lord", having played tambourine on "Wah-Wah" earlier that day.[59]
  4. ^ Molland added: "I remember hearing the rough-mix playback of 'My Sweet Lord'. The balance was all there, it was so incredibly full – an enormous acoustic guitar sound without any double tracking or anything. Just all of us going at once, straight on."[63]
  5. ^ In his 2010 autobiography, however, Bobby Whitlock states that he sang backing vocals with Harrison.[70]
  6. ^ Author Ian MacDonald credited Harrison with inspiring this "Spiritual Revival", due to his championing of Indian culture and Hindu philosophy from 1966 onwards with the Beatles.[99]
  7. ^ Harrison said he still received such letters in the 1980s.[102]
  8. ^ Lennon told a reporter, "Every time I put the radio on, it's 'Oh my Lord' – I'm beginning to think there must be a God."[45]
  9. ^ Elliot Huntley comments: "People don't usually hear a single and then automatically go and buy an expensive boxed-set triple album on the off-chance."[142]
  10. ^ He commented that whenever he listened to the radio, "every tune I hear sounds like something else."[49]
  11. ^ Woffinden said that Harrison showed admirable restraint in declining to take legal action against the Jam or publicly comment on such a "blatant" appropriation.[136] Clayson cites Harrison's agitation at the "'He's So Fine' affair" as the reason he overlooked several other potential infringements, including Roxy Music's "A Song for Europe" (which resembled "While My Guitar Gently Weeps"), Madonna's "Material Girl" (which borrowed from "Living in the Material World"), and Enya's "Orinoco Flow" (which used Harrison's guitar motif from "Blow Away").[155]
  12. ^ Subsequent charges of plagiarism in the music industry have resulted in a policy of swift settlement and therefore limited damage to an artist's credibility: the Rolling Stones' "Anybody Seen My Baby?", Oasis' "Shakermaker", "Whatever" and "Step Out", and the Verve's "Bitter Sweet Symphony" are all examples of songs whose writing credits were hastily altered to acknowledge composers of a potentially plagiarised work, with the minimum of litigation.[165][166][167]
  13. ^ Idle supplied the nagging references to "Sugar Pie Honey Bunch" and "Rescue Me" on "This Song".[49]
  14. ^ At his press conference in Los Angeles before the tour, Harrison said he would be playing the song with a "slightly different" arrangement,[220] adding that, as with "Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth)", "It should be much more loose."[221]
  15. ^ The performance of the song at Tulsa's Assembly Center on 21 November marked the only guest appearance of the tour when Leon Russell joined the band on stage.[226]

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External links

  • The Super Seventies: "My Sweet Lord"/"Isn't It a Pity" from The Billboard Book of Number One Hits by Fred Bronson
  • Bright Tunes Music v. Harrisongs at UC Berkeley School of Law
  • by Joseph C. Self

May 19, 2023
sweet, lord, this, article, about, song, other, uses, disambiguation, song, english, musician, george, harrison, released, november, 1970, triple, album, things, must, pass, also, released, single, harrison, first, solo, artist, topped, charts, worldwide, bigg. This article is about the song For other uses see My Sweet Lord disambiguation My Sweet Lord is a song by English musician George Harrison released in November 1970 on his triple album All Things Must Pass It was also released as a single Harrison s first as a solo artist and topped charts worldwide it was the biggest selling single of 1971 in the UK In America and Britain the song was the first number one single by an ex Beatle Harrison originally gave the song to his fellow Apple Records artist Billy Preston to record this version which Harrison co produced appeared on Preston s Encouraging Words album in September 1970 My Sweet Lord Original UK and US coverSingle by George Harrisonfrom the album All Things Must PassA side Isn t It a Pity US double A side B side What Is Life UK Released23 November 1970 US 15 January 1971 UK GenreFolk rock gospel pop 1 Length4 39LabelAppleSongwriter s George HarrisonProducer s George Harrison Phil SpectorGeorge Harrison singles chronology My Sweet Lord 1970 What Is Life 1971 George Harrison singles chronology Cheer Down 1989 My Sweet Lord 2002 Stuck Inside a Cloud 2002 Alternative cover2002 reissue coverHarrison wrote My Sweet Lord in praise of the Hindu god Krishna 2 while intending the lyrics as a call to abandon religious sectarianism through his blending of the Hebrew word hallelujah with chants of Hare Krishna and Vedic prayer 3 The recording features producer Phil Spector s Wall of Sound treatment and heralded the arrival of Harrison s slide guitar technique which one biographer described as musically as distinctive a signature as the mark of Zorro 4 Ringo Starr Eric Clapton Gary Brooker Bobby Whitlock and members of the group Badfinger are among the other musicians on the recording Later in the 1970s My Sweet Lord was at the centre of a heavily publicised copyright infringement suit due to its alleged similarity to the Ronnie Mack song He s So Fine a 1963 hit for the New York girl group the Chiffons In 1976 Harrison was found to have subconsciously plagiarised the song a verdict that had repercussions throughout the music industry Rather than the Chiffons song he said he used the out of copyright Christian hymn Oh Happy Day as his inspiration for the melody Harrison performed My Sweet Lord at the Concert for Bangladesh in August 1971 and it remains the most popular composition from his post Beatles career He reworked it as My Sweet Lord 2000 for inclusion as a bonus track on the 30th anniversary reissue of All Things Must Pass Many artists have covered the song most notably Edwin Starr Johnny Mathis and Nina Simone My Sweet Lord was ranked 454th on Rolling Stone s list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time in 2004 and 460th in the 2010 update and number 270 on a similar list published by the NME in 2014 It reached number one in Britain again when re released in January 2002 two months after Harrison s death Contents 1 Background and inspiration 2 Composition 3 Billy Preston s version 4 Recording 4 1 Basic track 4 2 Overdubs 4 3 Arrangement 5 Release 6 Impact and commercial performance 7 Contemporary critical reception 8 Copyright infringement suit 8 1 Initial action 8 2 Court hearing and ruling 8 3 Damages and litigation 8 4 Reaction 9 Retrospective reviews and legacy 10 Re releases and alternative versions 10 1 1975 The Pirate Song 10 2 2001 My Sweet Lord 2000 10 3 2011 Demo version 11 Harrison live versions 12 Cover versions and tributes 13 Personnel 14 Accolades 15 Chart performance 15 1 Weekly charts 15 2 Year end charts 15 3 All time charts 16 Certifications and sales 17 Notes 18 References 19 Sources 20 External linksBackground and inspiration EditGeorge Harrison began writing My Sweet Lord in December 1969 when he Billy Preston and Eric Clapton were in Copenhagen Denmark 4 5 as guest artists on Delaney amp Bonnie s European tour 6 7 By this time Harrison had already written the gospel influenced Hear Me Lord and with Preston the African American spiritual Sing One for the Lord 8 He had also produced two religious themed hit singles on the Beatles Apple record label Preston s That s the Way God Planned It and Radha Krishna Temple London s Hare Krishna Mantra 6 9 The latter was a musical adaptation of the 5000 year old Vaishnava Hindu mantra performed by members of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness ISKCON colloquially known as the Hare Krishna movement 10 11 Harrison now wanted to fuse the messages of the Christian and Gaudiya Vaishnava faiths 12 into what musical biographer Simon Leng terms gospel incantation with a Vedic chant 5 The Copenhagen stopover marked the end of the Delaney amp Bonnie tour with a three night residency at the Falkoner Theatre on 10 12 December 13 According to Harrison s 1976 court testimony My Sweet Lord was conceived while the band members were attending a backstage press conference and he had ducked out to an upstairs room at the theatre 14 Harrison recalled vamping chords on guitar and alternating between sung phrases of hallelujah and Hare Krishna 15 16 He later took the idea to the others and the chorus vocals were developed further 14 Band leader Delaney Bramlett s later version of events is that the idea originated from Harrison asking him how to go about writing a genuine gospel song 7 and that Bramlett demonstrated by scat singing the words Oh my Lord while wife Bonnie and singer Rita Coolidge added gospel hallelujah s in reply 17 Music journalist John Harris has questioned the accuracy of Bramlett s account however comparing it to a fisherman s It was this big type bragging story 7 Preston recalled that My Sweet Lord came about through Harrison asking him about writing gospel songs during the tour Preston said he played some chords on a backstage piano and the Bramletts began singing Oh my Lord and Hallelujah According to Preston George took it from there and wrote the verses It was very impromptu We never thought it would be a hit 18 Using as his inspiration the Edwin Hawkins Singers rendition of an eighteenth century Christian hymn Oh Happy Day 4 19 Harrison continued working on the theme 20 He completed the song with help from Preston once they had returned to London 15 16 Composition EditThe lyrics of My Sweet Lord reflect Harrison s often stated desire for a direct relationship with God expressed in simple words that all believers could affirm regardless of their religion 21 22 He later attributed the song s message to Swami Vivekananda 23 particularly the latter s teaching If there s a God we must see him And if there is a soul we must perceive it 24 Author Ian Inglis observes a degree of understandable impatience in the first verse s line Really want to see you Lord but it takes so long my Lord 21 By the end of the song s second verse Harrison declares a wish to know God also 25 26 and attempts to reconcile the impatience 21 My Sweet Lord has got a mantra in there and mantras are well they call it a mystical sound vibration encased in the syllable Once I chanted it for like three days non stop driving through Europe and you just get hypnotised 27 George Harrison Following this verse in response to the main vocal s repetition of the song title Harrison devised a choral line singing the Hebrew word of praise hallelujah common in the Christian and Jewish religions 19 Later in the song after an instrumental break these voices return now chanting the first twelve words of the Hare Krishna mantra known more reverentially as the Maha mantra 10 19 Hare Krishna Hare Krishna Krishna Krishna Hare Hare Hare Rama Hare Rama These Sanskrit words are the main mantra of the Hare Krishna faith with which Harrison identified 6 28 29 although he did not belong to any spiritual organisation 30 31 In his 1980 autobiography I Me Mine Harrison says that he intended repeating and alternating hallelujah and Hare Krishna to show that the two terms meant quite the same thing 20 as well as to have listeners chanting the mantra before they knew what was going on 32 Following the Sanskrit lines hallelujah is sung twice more before the mantra repeats 33 along with an ancient Vedic prayer 25 According to Hindu tradition this prayer is dedicated to a devotee s spiritual teacher or guru and equates the teacher to the divine Trimurti Brahma Vishnu and Shiva or Maheshvara and to the Godhead Brahman 34 Gurur Brahma gurur Viṣṇur gurur devo Mahesvaraḥ gurus sakṣat paraṃ Brahma tasmai sri gurave namaḥ Religious academic Joshua Greene one of the Radha Krishna Temple devotees in 1970 translates the lines as follows I offer homage to my guru who is as great as the creator Brahma the maintainer Vishnu the destroyer Shiva and who is the very energy of God 35 The prayer is the third verse of the Guru Stotram a fourteen verse hymn in praise of Hindu spiritual teachers 36 nb 1 Several commentators cite the mantra and the simplicity of Harrison s lyrics as central to the song s universality 21 38 In Inglis s view The lyrics are not directed at a specific manifestation of a single faith s deity but rather to the concept of one god whose essential nature is unaffected by particular interpretations and who pervades everything is present everywhere is all knowing and all powerful and transcends time and space All of us Christian Hindu Muslim Jew Buddhist can address our gods in the same way using the same phrase my sweet Lord 21 Billy Preston s version Edit My Sweet Lord Single by Billy Prestonfrom the album Encouraging WordsB side Little Girl Released3 December 1970GenreSoul gospelLength3 21LabelAppleSongwriter s George HarrisonProducer s George Harrison Billy PrestonBilly Preston singles chronology All That I ve Got I m Gonna Give It to You 1970 My Sweet Lord 1970 I Wrote a Simple Song 1971 With the Beatles still together officially in December 1969 Harrison had no plans to make a solo album of his own and reportedly intended to offer My Sweet Lord to Edwin Hawkins 39 40 Instead following the Delaney amp Bonnie tour he decided to record it with Billy Preston 4 for whom Harrison was co producing a second Apple album Encouraging Words 41 42 Recording took place at Olympic Studios in London in January 1970 8 with Preston as principal musician 16 supported by the guitarist bass player and drummer from the Temptations backing band 12 The Edwin Hawkins Singers happened to be on tour in the UK as well so Harrison invited them to participate 12 39 nb 2 Preston s version of My Sweet Lord differs from Harrison s later reading in that the hallelujah refrain appears from the start of the song and rather than the full mantra section the words Hare Krishna are sung only twice throughout the whole track 12 With the Vedic prayer also absent Leng views this original recording as a possible definitive roots take of the song citing its pure gospel groove and Hawkins participation 5 In his review of Encouraging Words Bruce Eder of AllMusic describes My Sweet Lord and All Things Must Pass another Harrison composition originally given to Preston to record 43 as stunning gospel numbers that make the Harrison versions seem pallid 44 Preston s My Sweet Lord was a minor hit in Europe when issued as a single there in September 1970 43 but otherwise Encouraging Words made little impression commercially 44 45 The album and single releases were delayed for at least two months in the United States There My Sweet Lord climbed to number 90 on the Billboard Hot 100 by the end of February 1971 46 helped by the enormous success of Harrison s version 47 Preston s single also peaked at number 23 on Billboard s Best Selling Soul Singles chart 48 In March 1971 he recorded a live version with King Curtis that was released in 2006 on the expanded edition of Curtis s album Live at Fillmore West 49 Recording EditBasic track Edit Five months after the Olympic session with the Beatles having broken up in April 1970 My Sweet Lord was one of 30 or more tracks that Harrison recorded for his All Things Must Pass triple album 50 He was initially reluctant to record the song for fear of committing himself to such an overt religious message 32 51 In I Me Mine he states I was sticking my neck out on the chopping block because now I would have to live up to something but at the same time I thought Nobody s saying it I wish somebody else was doing it 20 Abbey Road Studios formerly EMI Studios where Harrison recorded My Sweet Lord Principal recording took place at EMI Studios now Abbey Road Studios in London with Phil Spector co producing the sessions 52 Phil McDonald was the recording engineer for the basic track 53 It was taped on 28 May the first day of formal recording for All Things Must Pass after Wah Wah 54 Having assembled a large cast of backing musicians for the sessions Harrison initially recorded five takes of My Sweet Lord with just acoustic guitars and harmonium before changing to a full band arrangement 55 The line up of musicians on the song has been hard to ascertain due to the lack of available studio documentation and conflicting recollections over the ensuing decades 51 56 The musicians were requested by Harrison and booked by former Beatles roadie Mal Evans acting in a role that Beatles scholar Kenneth Womack likens to a stage manager for the project According to Womack and his co author Jason Kruppa Evans diaries from the period provide the first reliable record of the participants at the All Things Must Pass sessions since Evans paid the musicians and had to justify this expenditure to Apple 57 Harrison said that the musicians included about five acoustic guitarists Ringo Starr and Jim Gordon on drums 39 two piano players and a bassist 58 Evans diary entry for 28 May lists the players on My Sweet Lord as Harrison Eric Clapton and Badfinger guitarists Pete Ham and Joey Molland all on acoustic guitars Gary Brooker on piano Bobby Whitlock on harmonium Klaus Voormann on bass Starr on drums and Alan White on tambourine 59 nb 3 Harrison recalled working hard with the other acoustic guitarists to get them all to play exactly the same rhythm so it just sounded perfectly in sync 58 To achieve the resonant guitar sound on this and other All Things Must Pass tracks Molland said that he and his bandmates were partitioned off inside a plywood structure 63 nb 4 McDonald put what he terms a half soundproof box around Harrison to help capture his acoustic guitar 54 Overdubs Edit My Sweet Lord must have taken about twelve hours to overdub the guitar solos He must have had that in triplicate six part harmony before we decided on two part harmony Perfectionist is not the word He was beyond that He just had to have it so right He would try and try and experiment upon experiment He d do the same with the background vocals 64 Phil Spector on Harrison s dedication to overdubs on the initial recording Take 16 of My Sweet Lord was selected for overdubs 54 From late July onwards 65 Harrison and Peter Frampton added further acoustic guitars to the song 66 and to other tracks from the album 67 68 The chorus vocals were all sung by Harrison and credited to the George O Hara Smith Singers 32 69 nb 5 These contributions together with Harrison s slide guitar parts and Barham s orchestral arrangement were overdubbed during the next two months 64 partly at Trident Studios in central London with engineer Ken Scott 39 71 Harrison experimented with several harmony ideas in his guitar parts 72 having first applied himself to mastering slide during the 1969 Delaney amp Bonnie tour 73 Scott had to extend the original track repeating a portion of the final section to allow for the closing prayer and fadeout 74 The session for Barham s string arrangement took place on 18 September involving 22 orchestral musicians 75 Arrangement Edit Harrison biographer Simon Leng describes the completed recording as a painstakingly crafted tableau of sound beginning with a bank of chiming acoustic guitars and the flourish of zither strings that introduces Harrison s slide guitar motif 76 At close to the two minute mark after the tension building bridge a subtle two semitone shift in key from E major to the rarely used key of F major via a C dominant seventh chord signals the song s release from its extended introduction 77 This higher register is then complemented by Harrison s increasingly impassioned vocal according to Inglis and the subsequent timely reappearance of his twin slide guitars 21 before the backing vocals switch to the Sanskrit mantra and prayer 33 Leng comments on the Indian music aspects of the arrangement in the swarmandal like zithers representing the sympathetic strings of a sitar and the slide guitars evocation of sarangi dilruba and other string instruments 78 In an interview for Martin Scorsese s 2011 documentary George Harrison Living in the Material World Spector recalls that he liked the results so much he insisted that My Sweet Lord be the lead single from the album 79 This rock version of the song was markedly different from the Oh Happy Day inspired gospel arrangement in musical and structural terms 8 aligning Harrison s composition with pop music conventions but also drawing out the similarities of its melody line with that of the Chiffons 1963 hit He s So Fine 4 Beatles historian Bruce Spizer writes that this was due to Harrison being so focused on the feel of his record 80 while Record Collector editor Peter Doggett wrote in 2001 that despite Harrison s inspiration for My Sweet Lord having come from Oh Happy Day in the hands of producer and arranger Phil Spector it came out as a carbon copy of the Chiffons song 81 Chip Madinger and Mark Easter rue that Spector as master of all that was girl group during the early 60s failed to recognise the similarities 39 Release EditBefore arriving in New York on 28 October to carry out mastering on All Things Must Pass Harrison had announced that no single would be issued so as not to detract from the impact of the album 82 Apple s US executive Allan Steckler surprised him by insisting that not only should Harrison abandon thoughts of paring down his new material into a single LP but there were three sure fire hit singles My Sweet Lord Isn t It a Pity and What Is Life 83 Spector said that he had to fight Harrison and the latter s manager Allen Klein to ensure that My Sweet Lord was issued as the single 79 Film director Howard Worth recalls a preliminary finance meeting for the Raga documentary for which Harrison would provide emergency funding through Apple Films 84 that began with the ex Beatle asking him to listen to a selection of songs and pick his favourite which was My Sweet Lord 85 The song was selected even though Preston s version was already scheduled for release as a single in America the following month 51 Harrison was opposed to the release but relented to Apple s wishes 86 My Sweet Lord was issued as the album s lead single around the world but not in Britain 79 the release date was 23 November 1970 in the United States 87 The mix of the song differed from that found on All Things Must Pass by featuring less echo and a slightly altered backing vocal track 39 51 Both sides of the North American picture sleeve consisted of a Barry Feinstein photo of Harrison taken through a window at his recently purchased Friar Park home with some of the estate s trees reflected in the glass 80 Released as a double A side with Isn t It a Pity with Apple catalogue number 2995 in America both sides of the disc featured a full Apple label 80 Public demand via constant airplay in Britain led to a belated UK release 88 on 15 January 1971 89 There as Apple R 5884 the single was backed by What Is Life a song that Apple soon released elsewhere internationally as the follow up to My Sweet Lord 90 Impact and commercial performance EditAll Things Must Pass was an unconditional triumph for Harrison My Sweet Lord was everything that people wanted to hear in November 1970 shimmering harmonies lustrous acoustic guitars a solid Ringo Starr backbeat and an exquisite Harrison guitar solo 38 Author Peter Lavezzoli The Dawn of Indian Music in the West Harrison s version of My Sweet Lord was an international number 1 hit by the end of 1970 and through the early months of 1971 91 It was the first solo single by a Beatle to reach the top 92 and the biggest seller by any of the four throughout the 1970s 93 94 Without the support of any concert appearances or promotional interviews by Harrison the single s commercial success was due to its impact on radio 40 where Harrison biographer Gary Tillery writes the song rolled across the airwaves like a juggernaut with commanding presence much the way Dylan s Like a Rolling Stone had arrived in the mid sixties 95 Elton John recalled first hearing My Sweet Lord in a taxi and named it as the last of the era s great singles I thought Oh my God and I got chills You know when a record starts on the radio and it s great and you think Oh what is this what is this what is this The only other record I ever felt that way about afterwards was Brown Sugar 96 Writing for Rolling Stone in 2002 Mikal Gilmore said My Sweet Lord was as pervasive on radio and in youth consciousness as anything the Beatles had produced 97 The release coincided with a period when religion and spirituality had become a craze among Western youth as songs by Radha Krishna Temple and adaptations of the Christian hymns Oh Happy Day and Amazing Grace were all worldwide hits 98 even as church attendance continued to decline 92 nb 6 Harrison s song popularised the Hare Krishna mantra internationally 100 further to the impact of the Radha Krishna Temple s 1969 recording 28 In response to the heavy radio play letters poured into the London temple from around the world thanking Harrison for his religious message in My Sweet Lord 101 nb 7 According to music historian Andrew Grant Jackson the single s impact surpassed that of any other song in the era s spiritual revival and Harrison s Indian influenced slide playing soon heard also in recordings by Lennon Starr and Badfinger was one of the most distinctive sounds of the early 1970s 103 The single was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America on 14 December 1970 for sales of over 1 million copies 40 104 It reached number 1 on the US Billboard Hot 100 on 26 December 105 remaining on top for four weeks three of which coincided with All Things Must Pass s seven week run atop the Billboard albums chart 106 107 While Billboard recognised both sides of the single in the US 108 only Isn t It a Pity was listed when the record topped Canada s RPM 100 chart 109 In Britain My Sweet Lord entered the charts at number 7 before hitting number 1 on 30 January 110 and staying there for five weeks 111 It was the biggest selling single of 1971 in the UK 112 113 and performed similarly well around the world 69 particularly in France and Germany where it held the top spot for nine and ten weeks respectively 114 In his 2001 appraisal of Harrison s Apple recordings for Record Collector Doggett described Harrison as arguably the most successful rock star on the planet over this period adding My Sweet Lord and All Things Must Pass topped charts all over the world easily outstripping other solo Beatles projects later in the year such as Ram and Imagine 91 The single s worldwide sales amounted to 5 million copies by 1978 making it one of the best selling singles of all time 114 By 2010 according to Inglis My Sweet Lord had sold over 10 million copies 115 The song returned to the number 1 position again in the UK when reissued in January 2002 two months after Harrison s death from cancer at the age of 58 111 Contemporary critical reception EditReviewing the single for Rolling Stone Jon Landau called the track sensational 116 Billboard s reviewer described the record as a powerhouse two sided winner saying that My Sweet Lord had the potent feel and flavor of another Oh Happy Day with powerful lyrics and an infectious rhythm 117 Record World called it a haunting inspirational hare krishna chant song to a tune reminiscent of the Chiffons He s So Fine 118 Ben Gerson of Rolling Stone commented that the substituting of Harrison s Hare Krishna refrain for the trivial Doo lang doo lang doo lang s of He s So Fine was a sign of the times 119 and recognised Harrison as perhaps the premier studio musician among rock band guitarists 92 nb 8 In his December 1970 album review for NME Alan Smith bemoaned the apparent lack of a UK single release for My Sweet Lord Smith said the song seems to owe something to He s So Fine 120 121 and Gerson called it an obvious re write 119 Led by the single the album encouraged widespread recognition of Harrison as a solo artist and revised views of the nature of the Beatles creative leadership 116 Among these writers 122 Don Heckman of The New York Times predicted that My Sweet Lord Isn t It a Pity would soon top the US charts and credited Harrison with having generated some of the major changes in the style and substance of the Beatles through his championing of Indian music and Eastern religion 123 In a January 1971 review for NME Derek Johnson expressed surprise at Apple s delay in releasing the single in the UK and stated In my opinion this record finally and irrevocably establishes George as a talent equivalent to either Lennon or McCartney 121 David Hughes of Disc and Music Echo said he had run out of superlatives to describe the two sides He deemed My Sweet Lord the most instant and the most commercial track on All Things Must Pass adding that the single release was long overdue and a solution for those put off by the high price of the triple LP Hughes also wrote A great rhythm is set up and then comes that superb steel guitar with which he s so fallen in love The track does sound like the old Chiffons song He s So Fine but that s not a knock just a cocky observation 124 At the end of 1971 My Sweet Lord topped the Melody Maker reader s polls for both Single of the Year and World s Single of the Year 125 It was also voted Single of the Year in a poll conducted by Radio Luxembourg 126 In the US publication Record World the song was voted best single and Harrison was named as Top Male Vocalist of 1971 113 In June 1972 Harrison won two Ivor Novello songwriter s awards for My Sweet Lord 127 Copyright infringement suit EditInitial action Edit On 10 February 1971 Bright Tunes Music Corporation filed suit against Harrison and associated organisations including Harrisongs Apple Records and BMI alleging copyright infringement of the late Ronnie Mack s song He s So Fine 16 In I Me Mine Harrison admits to having thought Why didn t I realise when others started pointing out the similarity between the two songs 20 By June that year country singer Jody Miller had released a cover of He s So Fine incorporating Harrison s My Sweet Lord slide guitar riffs 128 thereby really putting the screws in from Harrison s point of view 129 At this time Bright Tunes were themselves the subject of litigation as Mack s mother had sued the company over non payment of royalties 130 Allen Klein entered into negotiations with Bright Tunes offering to buy its entire catalogue but no settlement could be reached before the company was forced into receivership 16 Musicologist Dominic Pedler writes that both songs have a three syllable title refrain followed by a 5 3 2 descent of the major scale in the tonic key E major for My Sweet Lord and G major for He s So Fine respective tempos are similar 121 and 145 beats per minute 131 In the respective B sections I really want to see you and I dunno how I m gonna do it there is a similar ascent through 5 6 8 but the Chiffons distinctively retain the G tonic for four bars and on the repeat of the motif uniquely go to an A note 9th embellishment over the first syllable of gonna 77 Harrison on the other hand introduces the more complex harmony of a relative minor C m as well as the fundamental and distinctly original slide guitar motif 77 While the case was on hold Harrison and his former bandmates Lennon and Starr chose to sever ties with Klein at the end of March 1973 an acrimonious split that led to further lawsuits for the three ex Beatles 132 Bright Tunes and Harrison later resumed their negotiations His final offer of 40 per cent of My Sweet Lord s US composer s and publisher s royalties along with a stipulation that he retain copyright for his song was viewed as a good one by Bright s legal representation yet the offer was rejected 129 It later transpired that Klein had renewed his efforts to purchase the ailing company now solely for himself and to that end was supplying Bright Tunes with insider details regarding My Sweet Lord s sales figures and copyright value 16 133 According to journalist Bob Woffinden writing in 1981 the case would most likely have been settled privately as so many had been in the past had Mack still been alive and had personal ownership of the copyright been a factor 134 In the build up to the case going to court the Chiffons recorded a version of My Sweet Lord in 1975 with the aim of drawing attention to the lawsuit 128 Author Alan Clayson has described the plagiarism suit as the most notorious civil action of the decade 135 saying that the extremity of the proceedings were provoked by a combination of the commercial success of Harrison s single and the intervention of litigation loving Mr Klein 130 Court hearing and ruling Edit Bright Tunes Music v Harrisongs Music went to the United States district court on 23 February 1976 to hear evidence on the allegation of plagiarism 16 133 Harrison attended the proceedings in New York with a guitar and each side called musical experts to support its argument 128 Harrison s counsel contended that he had drawn inspiration from Oh Happy Day and that Mack s composition was also derived from that hymn The judge presiding was Richard Owen a classical musician and composer of operas in his spare time 136 After reconvening in September 1976 the court found that Harrison had subconsciously copied He s So Fine since he admitted to having been aware of the Chiffons recording 137 Owen said in his conclusion to the proceedings 138 Did Harrison deliberately use the music of He s So Fine I do not believe he did so deliberately Nevertheless it is clear that My Sweet Lord is the very same song as He s So Fine with different words and Harrison had access to He s So Fine This is under the law infringement of copyright and is no less so even though subconsciously accomplished Damages and litigation Edit With liability established the court recommended an amount for the damages to be paid by Harrison and Apple to Bright Tunes which Owen totalled at 1 599 987 139 This figure amounted to three quarters of the royalty revenue raised in North America from My Sweet Lord as well as a significant proportion of that from the All Things Must Pass album 16 Some observers have considered this unreasonable and unduly harsh 140 since it underplayed the unique elements of Harrison s recording the universal spiritual message of its lyrics the signature guitar hook and its production and ignored the acclaim his album received in its own right 16 141 nb 9 The award factored in the royalty revenue raised from My Sweet Lord s inclusion on the recent Best of George Harrison compilation though at a more moderate percentage than for the 1970 album 16 In the UK the corresponding damages suit brought by Peter Maurice Music was swiftly settled out of court in July 1977 130 During the drawn out damages portion of the US suit events played into Harrison s hands when Klein s ABKCO Industries purchased the copyright to He s So Fine and with it all litigation claims 140 after which Klein proceeded to negotiate sale of the song to Harrison 16 On 19 February 1981 the court decided that due to Klein s duplicity in the case Harrison would only have to pay ABKCO 587 000 instead of the 1 6 million award and would also receive the rights to He s So Fine 587 000 being the amount Klein had paid Bright Tunes for the song in 1978 16 139 The court ruled that Klein s actions had been in breach of the fiduciary duty owed to Harrison a duty that continued even after the principal agent relationship ended 16 The litigation continued through to the early 1990s as the finer points of the settlement were finally decided In his 1993 essay on Bright Tunes v Harrisongs Joseph Self describes it as without question one of the longest running legal battles ever to be litigated in the United States 16 Music journalist David Cavanagh termed it the most absurd legal black comedy in the annals of rock 143 Matters were concluded in March 1998 80 Harrison retained the rights for both songs in the UK and North America and Klein was awarded the rights elsewhere in the world 49 Reaction Edit The ruling set new legal precedents and was a personal blow for Harrison who said he was too paranoid to write anything new for some time afterwards 144 145 nb 10 Early reaction in the music industry saw Little Richard claim for breach of copyright in a track recorded by the Beatles in 1964 for the Beatles for Sale album 128 as well as Ringo Starr credit songwriter Clifford T Ward as the inspiration for his Ringo s Rotogravure song Lady Gaye 146 Look I d be willing every time I write a song if somebody will have a computer and I can just play any new song into it and the computer will say Sorry or OK The last thing I want to do is keep spending my life in court 147 George Harrison October 1977 Shortly before the ruling was handed down in September 1976 Harrison wrote and recorded a song inspired by the court case the upbeat This Song 148 It includes the lines This tune has nothing Bright about it and don t infringe on anyone s copyright 149 The 1960s soul hits I Can t Help Myself Sugar Pie Honey Bunch and Rescue Me as well as his own composition You are all name checked in the lyrics 150 as if to demonstrate the point that as he later put it 99 per cent of the popular music that can be heard is reminiscent of something or other 151 152 In I Me Mine Harrison says of the episode I don t feel guilty or bad about it in fact My Sweet Lord saved many a heroin addict s life I know the motive behind writing the song in the first place and its effect far exceeded the legal hassle 153 According to Woffinden the ruling came as no surprise in the US He s So Fine had been a major hit there unlike in the UK and American commentators had been quick to scrutinise My Sweet Lord for its similarities 154 Woffinden nevertheless wrote that within the context of rock music it was an unjust decision and that Owen clearly understood nothing of rock n roll or gospel or popular music in terms of shared influences Woffinden commented that as of 1981 no comparable action over copyright infringement had been launched despite the continuation of this tradition he cited the appropriation of aspects of Harrison s 1966 song Taxman in the Jam s recent number 1 hit Start as an example of the industry s preference for avoiding the courtroom 136 nb 11 When asked to comment on the decision in a 1976 interview Starr said There s no doubt that the tune is similar but how many songs have been written with other melodies in mind George s version is much heavier than the Chiffons he might have done it with the original in the back of his mind but he s just very unlucky that someone wanted to make it a test case in court 156 In his 1980 interview with Playboy John Lennon expressed doubt about the notion of subconscious plagiarism saying of Harrison He must have known you know He s smarter than that 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 157 158 McCartney conceded that the Beatles stole a lot of stuff from other artists 159 in a 2008 interview he said the nick from He s So Fine was validated because Harrison had avoided the boy girl thing and offered an important spiritual message 143 Retrospective reviews and legacy EditAllMusic s Richie Unterberger says of the song s international popularity My Sweet Lord has a quasi religious feel but nevertheless has enough conventional pop appeal to reach mainstream listeners who may or may not care to dig into the spiritual lyrical message 160 Some Christian fundamentalist anti rock activists have objected that chanting Hare Krishna in My Sweet Lord was anti Christian or satanic while some born again Christians adopted the song as an anthem 161 Simon Leng describes the slide guitar motif as among the best known guitar passages in popular music 162 Ian Inglis highlights the combination of Harrison s evident lack of artifice and Spector s excellent production such that My Sweet Lord can be heard as a prayer a love song an anthem a contemporary gospel track or a piece of perfect pop 21 According to music historians David Luhrssen and Michael Larson My Sweet Lord became an early battleground over music as intellectual property and the ruling against Harrison opened a floodgate of suits over allegedly similar melodies and chord progressions 163 In a 2016 Rolling Stone article on landmark music copyright cases the suit is credited with establishing a precedent of harsher copyright standards as well as introducing the phrase subconscious plagiarism into the popular lexicon 164 nb 12 Writing in The New York Review of Books in 2013 author and neurologist Oliver Sacks cited the case when stating his preference for the word cryptomnesia over plagiarism which he said was suggestive of crime and deceit Sacks added that Owen had displayed psychological insight and sympathy in deeming Harrison s infringement to have been subconsciously accomplished 168 Due to the plagiarism suit My Sweet Lord became stigmatised 160 169 170 While acknowledging the similarity with He s So Fine music critic David Fricke describes Harrison s composition as the honest child of black American sacred song 6 Jayson Greene of Pitchfork writes that the court ruling of subconscious plagiarism could be a good euphemism for pop songwriting generally and the episode was doubly ironic considering Harrison s intrinsic generosity as an artist 171 In a 2001 review Greg Kot of the Chicago Tribune said that My Sweet Lord serves as the entrance to Spector s cathedral of sound on All Things Must Pass adding that although Harrison lost the lawsuit the song s towering majesty remains undiminished 172 Mikal Gilmore calls it an irresistible devotional 97 In 2009 pop culture critic Roy Trakin commented that if music fans were in doubt as to Harrison s enduring influence they should listen to Wilco s latest album for a song called You Never Know which is even closer to My Sweet Lord than that one was to He s So Fine with its slide guitar lines practically an homage to the original 173 David Simons of Acoustic Guitar magazine says that further to his contributions to the Beatles recordings Harrison elevated the sound and scope of recorded acoustic guitar with his debut single 63 In their written tributes to Harrison shortly after his death Mick Jagger and Keith Richards each named My Sweet Lord among their personal favourites of all his songs along with While My Guitar Gently Weeps 174 In 2010 AOL Radio listeners voted it the best song from Harrison s solo years 175 According to a chart published by PPL in August 2018 coinciding with the 50th anniversary of Apple Records founding My Sweet Lord had received the most airplay in the 21st century of any song released by the record label 176 ahead of Lennon s Imagine and the Beatles Hey Jude 177 My Sweet Lord was ranked 454th on Rolling Stone s list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time in 2004 178 and 460th on the magazine s revised list in 2010 179 According to the website Acclaimed Music it has also appeared in the following critics best song lists and books among others The 7 500 Most Important Songs of 1944 2000 by author Bruce Pollock 2005 Dave Thompson s 1000 Songs That Rock Your World 2011 ranked at number 247 Ultimate Classic Rock s Top 100 Classic Rock Songs 2013 number 56 the NME s 100 Best Songs of the 1970s 2012 number 65 and the same magazine s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time 2014 number 270 180 Re releases and alternative versions EditSince its initial release on All Things Must Pass My Sweet Lord has appeared on the 1976 compilation The Best of George Harrison and 2009 s career spanning Let It Roll Songs by George Harrison 181 The original UK single with What Is Life as the B side was reissued on Christmas Eve 1976 in Britain 182 a provocative move by EMI given the publicity the lawsuit had attracted that year for the song 183 The song appears in the 2017 Marvel Studios film Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 184 and it is included on the film s soundtrack 185 To promote the 50th anniversary reissue of All Things Must Pass in December 2021 the Harrison estate released a music video for the 2020 mix of My Sweet Lord 186 Executive produced by Dhani Harrison and David Zonshine it was written and directed by Lance Bangs and stars Mark Hamill Vanessa Bayer and Fred Armisen as secret agents investigating a mysterious phenomenon around Los Angeles Much of the video follows Armisen s perspective from a room filled with books to a large cinema showing a fictional film of George Harrison s home footage titled All Things Must Pass The video features cameos from many celebrities including Patton Oswalt Weird Al Yankovic Ringo Starr Jeff Lynne Joe Walsh Dhani and Olivia Harrison and ends with Armisen and Bayer s characters solving the mystery by hearing the song for the first time on their car radio 186 187 1975 The Pirate Song Edit On 26 December 1975 Harrison made a guest appearance on his friend Eric Idle s BBC2 comedy show Rutland Weekend Television 188 189 sending up his serious public image and seemingly about to perform My Sweet Lord 190 As a running gag in the show Harrison interrupts the proceedings hoping for an acting role as Pirate Bob dressed in a pirate costume with a parrot on his shoulder 189 191 He gets turned down each time by Idle and RWT regular Neil Innes who simply want him to play the part of George Harrison 192 At the end dressed in more normal attire and backed by the house band Harrison appears on stage strumming the introduction to My Sweet Lord on acoustic guitar 193 Instead of continuing with the song Harrison takes his chance to play Pirate Bob 188 by abruptly segueing into a sea shanty 194 Idle in his role as a greasy compere reacts with horror 192 and attempts to have Harrison removed from the studio 191 nb 13 This performance is known as The Pirate Song co written by Harrison and Idle 195 and the recording is only available unofficially on bootleg compilations such as Pirate Songs 193 Commenting on the parallels with Harrison s real life reluctance to play the pop star Simon Leng writes there was great resonance within these gags 192 2001 My Sweet Lord 2000 Edit In January 2001 Harrison included a new version of the song as a bonus track on the remastered All Things Must Pass album 6 Titled My Sweet Lord 2000 it features Harrison sharing vocals with Sam Brown the daughter of his friend Joe Brown 196 backed by mostly new instrumentation including acoustic guitar by his son Dhani and tambourine by Ray Cooper 197 198 The track opens with a snippet of sitar in Leng s description to emphasize its spiritual roots 199 Harrison said that his motivation for remaking the song was partly to play a better slide guitar solo 162 As further reasons he cited the spiritual response that the song had long received together with his interest in reworking the tune to avoid the contentious musical notes 200 Of the extended slide guitar break on My Sweet Lord 2000 Leng writes Harrison had never made so clear a musical statement that his signature bottleneck sound was as much his tool for self expression as his vocal cords 199 Elliot Huntley opines that Harrison s vocal was more gospel inflected and perhaps even more sincere than on the original recording given his deteriorating health during the final year of his life 198 This version also appeared on the January 2002 posthumous release of the My Sweet Lord charity CD single comprising the original My Sweet Lord Harrison s reworking and the acoustic run through of Let It Down with recent overdubs another 2001 bonus track 201 Proceeds went to Harrison s Material World Charitable Foundation for dispersal to selected charities apart from in the United States where proceeds went to the Self Realization Fellowship 202 For some months after the single release a portion of My Sweet Lord 2000 looped on Harrison s official website over screen images of lotus petals scattering and re forming 203 It also appears on the 2014 Apple Years 1968 75 reissue of All Things Must Pass 204 2011 Demo version Edit In November 2011 a demo of My Sweet Lord with Harrison backed by just Voormann and Starr 205 206 was included on the deluxe edition CD accompanying the British DVD release of Scorsese s Living in the Material World documentary 207 The trio recorded the song at EMI Studios on 26 May 1970 on the first of two days dedicated to taping demos of compositions under consideration for All Things Must Pass 206 208 Giles Martin who helped organise Harrison s recordings archive at Friar Park for the film project described the track as an early live take 209 The demo was released internationally in May 2012 on the Early Takes Volume 1 compilation 207 210 In his album review for Rolling Stone David Frick deemed this version of the song an acoustic hosanna 211 Harrison live versions EditHarrison performed My Sweet Lord at every one of his relatively few solo concerts 212 starting with the two Concert for Bangladesh shows at New York s Madison Square Garden on 1 August 1971 213 The recording released on the subsequent live album was taken from the evening show 214 and begins with Harrison s spoken Hare Krishna over his opening acoustic guitar chords 215 Among the 24 backing musicians was a Soul Choir featuring singers Claudia Linnear Dolores Hall and Joe Greene 216 but it was Harrison who sang the end of song Guru Stotram prayer in his role as lead vocalist unlike on the studio recording where it was sung by the backing chorus 217 The slide guitar parts were played by Eric Clapton and Jesse Ed Davis 218 During his 1974 North American tour Harrison s only one there as a solo artist he performed My Sweet Lord as the encore at each show 219 nb 14 In contrast with the subtle shift from hallelujah s to Sanskrit chants on his 1970 original 33 Harrison used the song to engage his audience in kirtan the practice of chanting the holy names of the Lord in Indian religions from Om Christ and Krishna to Buddha and Allah 222 with varying degrees of success 223 224 Backed by a band that again included Billy Preston Harrison turned My Sweet Lord into an extended gospel funk piece closer in its arrangement to Preston s Encouraging Words version and lasting up to ten minutes 225 nb 15 Harrison s second and final solo tour took place in Japan in December 1991 with Clapton s band 227 228 A live version of My Sweet Lord recorded at the Tokyo Dome on 14 December was released the following year on the Live in Japan album 229 Cover versions and tributes Edit My Sweet Lord attracted many cover versions in the early 1970s and was the most performed song of 1971 Its coinciding with a trend for spirituality in rock music ensured it was frequently performed on religious themed television shows The song was also popular among supper club performers following recordings by artists such as Johnny Mathis 230 The song was accepted as an authentic work in the gospel tradition 231 in music journalist Chris Ingham s description it became a genuine gospel classic 232 Many of the Christian cover artists have omitted the mantra lyrics on religious grounds 184 In 1972 Nina Simone released an 18 minute gospel reworking of My Sweet Lord performed live at Fort Dix before a group of African American soldiers 233 It served as an anti Vietnam War statement and the centrepiece of her album Emergency Ward 49 which also included an 11 minute version of Harrison s Isn t It a Pity 233 Simone interspersed the song with the David Nelson poem Today Is a Killer giving the performance an apocalyptic ending 233 By the late 1970s My Sweet Lord was the most covered song written and released by any of the former Beatles since the band s break up 234 Edwin Starr and Byron Lee and the Dragonaires were among the other artists who recorded it 49 In April 2002 Elton John Sting James Taylor Ravi Shankar Anoushka Shankar and others performed My Sweet Lord to close the Harrison tribute opening portion of the Rock for the Rainforest benefit concert held at Carnegie Hall in New York City 235 At the Concert for George on 29 November 2002 it was performed by Billy Preston 236 Personnel EditAccording to Mal Evans diary except where noted the following musicians played on Harrison s original version of My Sweet Lord 59 George Harrison vocals acoustic guitars 54 slide guitars backing vocals Eric Clapton acoustic guitar Pete Ham acoustic guitar Joey Molland acoustic guitar Peter Frampton acoustic guitar 51 Gary Brooker piano Bobby Whitlock harmonium Klaus Voormann bass Ringo Starr drums Alan White tambourine uncredited zithers 60 unidentified orchestral musicians eight violins eight violas four cellos two double basses 75 John Barham string arrangementAccolades EditYear Awards Category Result1971 Record World Best Single Disc of the Year Won 113 Melody Maker British Single of the Year Won 125 World Single of the Year Won 125 1972 NME Awards Best Single Disc Won 237 14th Grammy Awards Record of the Year Nominated 238 17th Ivor Novello Awards The A Side of the Record Issued in 1971 Which Achieved the Highest Certified British Sales Won 239 The Most Performed Work of the Year Won 239 Chart performance EditWeekly charts Edit Original release Chart 1970 1971 PeakpositionAustralian Go Set National Top 60 240 1Australian Kent Music Report 241 1Austrian Singles Chart 242 1Belgian Ultratop Singles Chart 243 1Canadian RPM Singles Chart 244 1Dutch Singles Chart 245 1French SNICOP Hit Parade Officiel 114 1Irish Singles Chart 246 1Japanese Oricon Singles Chart 247 4Mexico Singles Chart 248 1New Zealand Singles Chart 114 1Norwegian VG lista Singles 249 1South African Springbok Singles Chart 250 3Spanish Singles Chart 251 1Swedish Kvallstoppen Chart 252 1Swiss Singles Chart 253 1UK Singles Chart 111 1US Billboard Hot 100 254 1US Cash Box Top 100 255 1West German Media Control Singles 256 1 Posthumous reissue Chart 2002 PeakpositionAustralian Singles Chart 257 62Canadian Singles Chart 258 1Dutch Singles Chart 259 46Irish Singles Chart 246 5Italian Singles Chart 260 12Japanese Oricon Weekly Singles Chart 261 96Norwegian Singles Chart 262 18Scottish Singles Chart 263 1Swedish Singles Chart 264 56Swiss Singles Chart 265 61UK Singles Chart 111 1US Billboard Hot 100 258 94 Year end charts Edit Chart 1971 PositionAustralian Singles Chart 241 2Austrian Singles Chart 266 2Canadian RPM Singles Chart 267 7Dutch Singles Chart 268 21German Singles Chart 269 7Japanese Oricon Singles Chart 247 38UK Singles Chart 270 1US Billboard Year End Singles 271 31Chart 2002 PositionCanadian Singles Chart 272 33Irish Singles Chart 273 89UK Singles Chart 274 56 All time charts Edit Chart 1958 2018 PositionUS Billboard Hot 100 275 331Certifications and sales EditRegion Certification Certified units salesItaly FIMI 276 Gold 35 000 Japan RIAJ 277 2 Platinum 269 000 247 United Kingdom BPI 279 Platinum 960 561 278 United States RIAA 280 Platinum 1 000 000 Sales streaming figures based on certification alone Notes Edit The same verse appears at the end of Ravi Shankar s Vandanaa Trayee the opening track of the Harrison produced 1997 album Chants of India 37 Hawkins gospel group also overdubbed vocals onto the Harrison Preston collaboration Sing One for the Lord at this time 5 Authors Simon Leng and Bruce Spizer list Preston as having played on the recording along with Clapton Gary Wright on piano Voormann and all four members of Badfinger on acoustic guitars and tambourine 51 60 Wright s first Harrison session was for Isn t It a Pity however which took place on 2 June 61 Leng compiled his description of the album sessions after consulting Voormann and John Barham in the early 2000s and from an interview with Molland Leng states that his keyboard credits for All Things Must Pass are more indicative than authoritative 62 According to Kruppa citing Evans list Badfinger drummer Mike Gibbins was evidently sitting out the session for My Sweet Lord having played tambourine on Wah Wah earlier that day 59 Molland added I remember hearing the rough mix playback of My Sweet Lord The balance was all there it was so incredibly full an enormous acoustic guitar sound without any double tracking or anything Just all of us going at once straight on 63 In his 2010 autobiography however Bobby Whitlock states that he sang backing vocals with Harrison 70 Author Ian MacDonald credited Harrison with inspiring this Spiritual Revival due to his championing of Indian culture and Hindu philosophy from 1966 onwards with the Beatles 99 Harrison said he still received such letters in the 1980s 102 Lennon told a reporter Every time I put the radio on it s Oh my Lord I m beginning to think there must be a God 45 Elliot Huntley comments People don t usually hear a single and then automatically go and buy an expensive boxed set triple album on the off chance 142 He commented that whenever he listened to the radio every tune I hear sounds like something else 49 Woffinden said that Harrison showed admirable restraint in declining to take legal action against the Jam or publicly comment on such a blatant appropriation 136 Clayson cites Harrison s agitation at the He s So Fine affair as the reason he overlooked several other potential infringements including Roxy Music s A Song for Europe which resembled While My Guitar Gently Weeps Madonna s Material Girl which borrowed from Living in the Material World and Enya s Orinoco Flow which used Harrison s guitar motif from Blow Away 155 Subsequent charges of plagiarism in the music industry have resulted in a policy of swift settlement and therefore limited damage to an artist s credibility the Rolling Stones Anybody Seen My Baby Oasis Shakermaker Whatever and Step Out and the Verve s Bitter Sweet Symphony are all examples of songs whose writing credits were hastily altered to acknowledge composers of a potentially plagiarised work with the minimum of litigation 165 166 167 Idle supplied the nagging references to Sugar Pie Honey Bunch and Rescue Me on This Song 49 At his press conference in Los Angeles before the tour Harrison said he would be playing the song with a slightly different arrangement 220 adding that as with Give Me Love Give Me Peace on Earth It should be much more loose 221 The performance of the song at Tulsa s Assembly Center on 21 November marked the only guest appearance of the tour when Leon Russell joined the band on stage 226 References Edit Pitchfork Staff The 200 Best Songs of the 1970s Pitchfork 22 August 2016 retrieved 13 October 2022 Newport p 70 Leng pp 71 84 a b c d e Clayson George Harrison p 280 a b c d Leng p 71 a b c d e The Editors of Rolling Stone p 180 a b c John Harris A Quiet Storm Mojo July 2001 p 70 a b c Andy Davis Billy Preston Encouraging Words CD liner notes Apple Records 2010 produced by George Harrison amp Billy Preston Inglis p 21 a b Allison p 46 Andy Davis The Radha Krsna Temple CD liner notes Apple Records 2010 produced by George Harrison reissue produced by Andy Davis amp Mike Heatley a b c d Badman p 203 Miles p 362 a b Bright Tunes Music v Harrisongs p 179 UC Berkeley School of Law retrieved 17 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retrieved 4 May 2014 Top Pop 100 Singles Billboard 25 December 1971 p 11 retrieved 4 May 2014 Canada s Top 200 Singles of 2002 Jam 14 January 2003 Archived from the original on 6 September 2004 Retrieved 22 March 2022 Top 100 Songs of 2002 Raidio Teilifis Eireann 2002 Archived from the original on 2 June 2004 Retrieved 16 March 2022 The Official UK Singles Chart 2002 PDF UKChartsPlus Retrieved 25 June 2018 Billboard Hot 100 60th Anniversary Interactive Chart Billboard Retrieved 10 December 2018 Italian single certifications George Harrison My Sweet Lord in Italian Federazione Industria Musicale Italiana Retrieved 7 December 2021 Select 2021 in the Anno drop down menu Select My Sweet Lord in the Filtra field Select Singoli under Sezione Tatsaku Ren 2011 Oricon Sales Report in Japanese Tokyo Oricon Style Copsey Rob 19 September 2017 The UK s Official Chart millionaires revealed Official Charts Company Retrieved 19 October 2017 British single certifications George Harrison My Sweet Lord British Phonographic Industry Retrieved 14 May 2021 American single certifications George Harrison My Sweet Lord Recording Industry Association of America Sources EditDale C Allison Jr The Love There That s Sleeping The Art and Spirituality of George Harrison Continuum New York NY 2006 ISBN 978 0 8264 1917 0 Keith Badman The Beatles Diary Volume 2 After the Break Up 1970 2001 Omnibus Press London 2001 ISBN 0 7119 8307 0 Roy Carr amp Tony Tyler The Beatles An Illustrated Record Trewin Copplestone Publishing London 1978 ISBN 0 450 04170 0 Harry Castleman amp Walter J Podrazik All Together Now The First Complete Beatles Discography 1961 1975 Ballantine Books New York NY 1976 ISBN 0 345 25680 8 Alan Clayson George Harrison Sanctuary London 2003 ISBN 1 86074 489 3 Alan Clayson Ringo Starr Sanctuary London 2003 ISBN 1 86074 488 5 Stephen Davis Old Gods Almost Dead The 40 Year Odyssey of the Rolling Stones Broadway Books New York NY 2001 ISBN 0 7679 0312 9 Peter Doggett The Apple Years Record Collector April 2001 pp 34 40 The Editors of Rolling Stone Harrison Rolling Stone Press Simon amp Schuster New York NY 2002 ISBN 0 7432 3581 9 Don Fleming amp Richard Radford Archival Notes the Making of All Things Must Pass Capitol Records Calderstone Productions Los Angeles CA London 2021 Michael Frontani The Solo Years in Kenneth Womack ed The Cambridge Companion to the Beatles Cambridge University Press Cambridge UK 2009 ISBN 978 1 139 82806 2 pp 153 82 Joshua M Greene Here Comes the Sun The Spiritual and Musical Journey of George Harrison John Wiley amp Sons Hoboken NJ 2006 ISBN 978 0 470 12780 3 George Harrison I Me Mine Chronicle Books San Francisco CA 2002 1980 ISBN 0 8118 3793 9 Olivia Harrison George Harrison Living in the Material World Abrams New York NY 2011 ISBN 978 1 4197 0220 4 Bill Harry The George Harrison Encyclopedia Virgin Books London 2003 ISBN 978 0 7535 0822 0 Chris Hunt ed NME Originals Beatles The Solo Years 1970 1980 IPC Ignite London 2005 Elliot J Huntley Mystical One George Harrison After the Break up of the Beatles Guernica Editions Toronto ON 2006 ISBN 1 55071 197 0 Chris Ingham The Rough Guide to the Beatles 2nd edn Rough Guides Penguin London 2006 ISBN 978 1 84836 525 4 Ian Inglis The Words and Music of George Harrison Praeger Santa Barbara CA 2010 ISBN 978 0 313 37532 3 Andrew Grant Jackson Still the Greatest The Essential Solo Beatles Songs Scarecrow Press Lanham MD 2012 ISBN 978 0 8108 8222 5 Ashley Kahn ed George Harrison on George Harrison Interviews and Encounters Chicago Review Press Chicago IL 2020 ISBN 978 1 64160 051 4 Jason Kruppa 013 George Harrison My Sweet Lord Producing the Beatles The Podcast 25 April 2022 retrieved 27 October 2022 Peter Lavezzoli The Dawn of Indian Music in the West Continuum New York NY 2006 ISBN 0 8264 2819 3 Simon Leng While My Guitar Gently Weeps The Music of George Harrison Hal Leonard Milwaukee WI 2006 ISBN 1 4234 0609 5 David Luhrssen amp Michael Larson Encyclopedia of Classic Rock Greenwood Santa Barbara CA 2017 ISBN 978 1 4408 3513 1 Thomas MacFarlane The Music of George Harrison Routledge Abingdon UK 2019 ISBN 978 1 138 59910 9 Chip Madinger amp Mark Easter Eight Arms to Hold You The Solo Beatles Compendium 44 1 Productions Chesterfield MO 2000 ISBN 0 615 11724 4 Douglas McCall Monty Python A Chronology 1969 2012 McFarland Jefferson NC 2014 ISBN 978 0 7864 7811 8 Barry Miles The Beatles Diary Volume 1 The Beatles Years Omnibus Press London 2001 ISBN 0 7119 8308 9 Joseph Murrells The Book of Golden Discs 2nd edn Barrie amp Jenkins London 1978 ISBN 0 214 20480 4 John P Newport The New Age Movement and the Biblical Worldview Conflict and Dialogue W B Eerdmans Grand Rapids MI 1998 ISBN 0 8028 4430 8 Dominic Pedler The Songwriting Secrets of the Beatles Omnibus Press London 2003 ISBN 978 0 7119 8167 6 Robert Rodriguez Solo in the 70s John Paul George Ringo 1970 1980 Parading Press Downers Grove IL 2013 ISBN 978 0 9892555 0 9 Nicholas Schaffner The Beatles Forever McGraw Hill New York NY 1978 ISBN 0 07 055087 5 David Sheff All We Are Saying The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono Macmillan London 2010 ISBN 978 1 4299 5808 0 Bruce Spizer The Beatles Solo on Apple Records 498 Productions New Orleans LA 2005 ISBN 0 9662649 5 9 Gary Tillery Working Class Mystic A Spiritual Biography of George Harrison Quest Books Wheaton IL 2011 ISBN 978 0 8356 0900 5 Bobby Whitlock with Marc Roberty Bobby Whitlock A Rock n Roll Autobiography McFarland Jefferson NC 2010 ISBN 978 0 7864 6190 5 Bob Woffinden The Beatles Apart Proteus London 1981 ISBN 0 906071 89 5 External links EditThe Super Seventies My Sweet Lord Isn t It a Pity from The Billboard Book of Number One Hits by Fred Bronson Bright Tunes Music v Harrisongs at UC Berkeley School of Law The My Sweet Lord He s So Fine Plagiarism Suit by Joseph C Self Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title My Sweet Lord amp oldid 1152515527, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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