George Harrison’s “My Sweet Lord” (1970) is about a wistful yearning for God, a higher power, religion, and spirituality. Over the refrain “My Sweet Lord,” Harrison alternatively calls out “Hallelujah” which suggests a more conventional Western, Christian faith. Later in the song, he switches from “Hallelujah” to “Hare Krishna” to “Dali Lama,” which tends to show Harrison’s search for spiritual succor is rather flailing, or at any rate, far reaching. Or maybe it’s just Harrison’s way of showing off his knowledge of Eastern religions.
The lyric “I really want to see you” speaks to the human need for religion, something that requires faith, of course. Yet wouldn’t it be more reassuring to perceive this celestial presence with our senses? And so this line expresses both a yearning and a certain frustration. It represents Harrison’s own earnest attempt to connect with some type of spirituality, apparently traversing the globe and different religions to try to find some inner peace.
Should this mean that George, “the quiet Beatle,” was discontented? Not necessarily. It merely shows a very human need to believe in some type of higher power, a primal instinct which Harrison was not above, regardless of his fame and fortune. Paul and John also put on the Indian garb in 1968 to do some transcendental meditation, but they didn’t continue going on about it for decades like George.
And I would be remiss here not to mention that it’s a beautiful song, musically, and given the interesting theme: The need to fill a nagging sense of emptiness with God.
The slide guitar riff which is layered over the steady strumming of the acoustic guitar remind us so much of the Beatles that the song is delightfully familiar, yet undeniably redolent with Harrison’s particular character, the introspective Beatle. And “My Sweet Lord” is nothing if not introspective, searching, and a touch melancholy.
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One response to “‘My Sweet Lord’: George Harrison’s Spiritual Yearning”
The European Beatles like most of LA’s music super stars are raised as wolves. I was Raised in a family with over a century in the lowest and darkest levels of what the public now calls deep state. The Beatles comes from the same. like the leaders in national media networks and the music industry the Beatles were also raised wolves and leveraged by the Aka deep state. FYI we call the families. The Beatles were educated, created, funded and supported by the families for the purpose of propaganda. Each member came from families who deeded just as Willie Nelson, M Jackson, Sinatra, Oprah, Diddy, Tupac, Joplin, and some in my father’s family did. We on the other hand we’re not raised musicians, actors or propagandist, we were raised and vetted to be black hands just Like in Dallas 63.
Each one of the Beatles, once self supported, not only were propagandist for the Aka families leadership they were asked to give back financially. Each poured money back into the Aka families leadership and organizations. Lennon was funding Trotsky internationalist organs and Paul Communist revolutionaries in America. Patriots tracked those funds for decades. The Aka families investments in building the Beatles was so expensive and important in the early days that when a member passed away backups were being trained to replace them.
But this is only gossip among wolves.