"My Sweet Lord" is a song by the 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 the United States 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.
Harrison wrote "My Sweet Lord" in praise of the Hindu god Krishna, 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. 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". 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". 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". The latter was a musical adaptation of the 5,000-year-old Vaishnava Hindu mantra, performed by members of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), colloquially known as "the Hare Krishna movement". Harrison wanted to fuse the messages of the Christian and Gaudiya Vaishnava faiths
The Copenhagen stopover marked the end of the Delaney & Bonnie tour, with a three-night residency at the Falkoner Theatre on 10–12 December. 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. Harrison recalled vamping chords on guitar and alternating between sung phrases of "hallelujah" and "Hare Krishna". He later took the idea to the others, and the chorus vocals were developed further. 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.
Using as his inspiration the Edwin Hawkins Singers' rendition of an eighteenth-century Christian hymn, "Oh Happy Day", Harrison continued working on the theme. He completed the song, with help from Preston, once they had returned to London. He later attributed the song's message to Swami Vivekananda, particularly the latter's teaching: "If there's a God, we must see him. And if there is a soul, we must perceive it." 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". and attempts to reconcile the impatience.|source= – George Harrison|width=25%|align=right|style=padding:8px;
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. although he did not belong to any spiritual organisation. 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",
Following the Sanskrit lines, "hallelujah" is sung twice more before the mantra repeats, along with an ancient Vedic prayer.
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." The prayer is the third verse of the Guru Stotram, a fourteen-verse hymn in praise of Hindu spiritual teachers.
Several commentators cite the mantra and the simplicity of Harrison's lyrics as central to the song's universality. 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']." Instead, following the Delaney & Bonnie tour, he decided to record it with Billy Preston, Recording took place at Olympic Studios in London, in January 1970, The Edwin Hawkins Singers happened to be on tour in the UK as well, so Harrison invited them to participate. as "stunning gospel numbers ... that make the Harrison versions seem pallid".
It was stated in February 1970 that "My Sweet Lord" would be Preston's next single, and was later confirmed that it would be released in the UK on 4 September. However, the single was withdrawn prior to release. Following the release of Encouraging Words in the US in November, "My Sweet Lord" was released as a single there in December. It climbed to number 90 on the Billboard Hot 100 by the end of February 1971, helped by the enormous success of Harrison's version. Preston's single also peaked at number 23 on Billboards Best Selling Soul Singles chart. 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. and in David Leland's concert film from the event.
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. He was initially reluctant to record the song, for fear of committing himself to such an overt religious message. 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. Phil McDonald was the recording engineer for the basic track. It was taped on 28 May, the first day of formal recording for All Things Must Pass, after "Wah-Wah". 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.
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. 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.
Harrison said that the musicians included "about five" acoustic guitarists, Ringo Starr and Jim Gordon on drums, 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.