It was the mantra that took over the world. George Harrison’s first solo No.1 single stands alone in rock history for going against the secular grain as a full-on love song to the Creator. While there’d been some precedent with both the Beach Boys’ God Only Knows and Norman Greenbaum’s Spirit In The Sky, My Sweet Lord was different. The lyric offers nothing but praise – loaded with 40 ‘Lord’s 16 ‘hallelujah’s and nine ‘Hare Krishna’s.
Harrison started writing the song while he was on tour with Delaney & Bonnie in Sweden in late 1969. His main inspiration for it was Oh Happy Day, an old gospel tune rearranged into a hit that year for the Edwin Hawkins Singers. Responding to that record’s joyful call-and-response vibe, Harrison said: “It really just knocked me out… I just felt a great feeling of the Lord. So I thought: ‘I’ll write another Oh Happy Day, which became My Sweet Lord.”
