(The Hit Hammer is where I'm reviewing each #1 song on the Billboard Hot 100. Starting from when the chart started in 1958 and eventually working my way to the present. To see my inspiration and more information about this blog, please CLICK HERE)
George Harrison - "My Sweet Lord"
Hit Number 1: December 26, 1970
Stay at Number 1: 4 Weeks
People know him as the "quiet Beatle." Since 1963, George Harrison was always in the shadow of his fellow bandmates John Lennon and Paul McCartney, but I think he wanted it to be that way. It was rare that he'd ever sing lead, and seemed to be content on standing to the side playing his guitar. But the Beatles' breakup became inevitable in 1969, and it finally happened in early 1970 during the crisis of "The Long and Winding Road". While Lennon and McCartney continued to feud about just about everything, Harrison formed a tight friendship with Billy Preston, a young up-and-coming piano player who collaborated with the Beatles on their 1969 smash "Get Back". Harrison, who probably knew that the end of the Beatles was approaching, began writing "My Sweet Lord" while him, Preston and Eric Clapton were in Copenhagen, Denmark. They were guest artists for the American duo Delaney & Bonnie's European tour. (Delaney & Bonnie's highest-charting single was "Never Ending Song of Love", which made it to #13. It's a 4)
By this point, Harrison had already experimented with religious/gospel music, and sometimes Preston was involved in the making of those songs. It was the end of the Delaney & Bonnie tour where Harrison really began to make progress on his song. He got out of a backstage press conference and headed to an upstairs room at the theatre where he began vamping chords on his guitar and singing "hallelujah" and "Hare Krishna." See, Harrison had found himself embracing the religion of Hinduism, and the whole idea of "My Sweet Lord" was the praising of the Hindu god Krishna. Perhaps part of the appeal for everyone and "My Sweet Lord" was the fact that it could be used as a praise of any God. When Harrison had the skeleton of the song laid out, he later showed the others who had stayed at the press conference, and with their help, the chorus of the song developed even more.
Admittedly, the finished product is hardly a masterpiece. The main knock I have against the song is how repetitive it is. There's a whole two minutes of a backing choir singing the same "Hallelujah" and "Hare Krishna" lines over and over again, and Harrison himself doesn't add much to the song's structure, except for his signature slide guitar techniques. But there's another way of interpreting the song's repetitiveness in my eyes. Maybe Harrison and company were lost in the song, feeling as if they were really connecting with God and didn't want to change anything else about what they were doing. I haven't seen any proof that this is what happened, but it's worth mentioning as a possibility. The song is also structured as a steady buildup, and by the time the beat picks up, the melody changes and the choir joins Harrison, it truly is a very nice spiritual call to the man upstairs. It's just a repetitive one.
Of course, I can't talk about "My Sweet Lord" without bringing up the ridiculous copyright claim against it. Back in 1963, there was a #1 hit called "He's So Fine" by the Chiffons, and in 1976 it was alleged that Harrison subconsciously took the melody from that song and used it in "My Sweet Lord". It became a big mess for Harrison, and it was a battle that he would fight until 1998, just 3 years before his death in 2001. He got to keep the rights to the song in the U.K. and America. Personally, I think these kinds of claims are ridiculous. You know it probably happens all the time where people write songs that were inspired (in Harrison's case unintentionally) by other songs. No one is stealing work away from anyone else. It's not like rap where you see artists sample other songs by using the exact same melodies. And as they should, they credit the original artists. This isn't that same kind of scenario, and those kinds of claims, obviously, irritate me.
(Also, the Chiffons apparently made thier own version of "My Sweet Lord" in 1975, which did nothing to help matters. I really didn't see the point of that.)
I'll admit, this is a lot to take in for one song. Here we have a guy who has a newfound appreciation for Hinduism, and writes a song praising the Hindu God after his insanely popular band broke up. The song is enlightening, optimistic, but very very repetitive. He then gets slapped with a copyright claim that he would have to battle for 22 years, just for everyone to see that he unintentionally "stole" the melody from another song. It's a mess, but a mess that will likely live on forever. My opinions boil down to that the song isn't that creative, but it's still a great little praising to God, and it's easy to find yourself singing along to it. It's really the only #1 song that I can think of that expresses some sort of appreciation for God too. In that case, I appreciate the song even more in return. Just don't get me started on that copyright claim.
GRADE: 6/10
JUST MISSED:
The 5th Dimension's drippy, but still lovely "One Less Bell to Answer" peaked at #2 behind "My Sweet Lord". It's one of those few drippy ballads that I actually like, and it's an 8.
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